Easter(s) 2012

As with every big holiday we had more than one celebration to be at for Easter, and it was Desmond's first. As overwhelming as it all is, we are blessed to be so near family that we want to spend time with during the holidays. In addition, we always save time for just the 4 of us to keep our own little traditions going.

Unfortunately on Good Friday, Ben was home sick. He'd been coughing every morning for months and months and it had finally become really bad all day. After a visit to the doctor they said Ben had bronchitis and started him on antibiotics. He slept and coughed most of the day away while I did my best to take care of all three of my guys.

That evening I did manage to color some eggs with Malakai. He really enjoyed it and after we did a dozen he wanted to do even more.

{yes my son is wearing sequins}

Saturday morning Ben still wasn't feeling all that great but composed himself for the gathering at his parents' place. We dressed the boys in Easter outfit 1 (of 2) and took photos before anyone necessitated a wardrobe change...

{Their first matching outfits}

Then we were off to visit with both our immediate families. First our kiddos were showered with gifts from Ben's parents and his brother David's girlfriend, Vanessa.

Then they hunted eggs...

Okay, Kai hunted eggs and my mom took Desmond around to motivate Kai to keep up with his "competition". Every egg Malakai found, he would stop and open it to see what was inside.

Once all the eggs were found we took a couple group pictures before Ben headed inside to rest until it was time to eat. The rest of us visited and after a while we had lunch. A little later we gave Des his first "solid" food- baby oatmeal. He was a pro. It was such a stark contrast from Kai's first food at only 4 months old.

After a bit more visiting we headed home and rested up for the events of the next day.

On Easter Sunday I headed to church/work early in the morning like I do every week while the boys stayed home until 2nd service. Ben got the boys into outfit 2 and took some quick photos for me.

{Des is wearing Kai's 1st Easter outfit...which is 9 month size}

My family joined us for church and we had an awesome spirit-filled service to celebrate our risen King!

After all my work duties were done we had a bit before the lunch and egg hunt at my Aunt + Uncle's house. My parents gave us some Easter goodies, then Ben and my family took Kai to play outside while I nursed Des to sleep. Shortly after we headed out and Kai fell asleep for short nap in the car, just enough to keep the grumpies at bay.

It was a relatively small gathering and oddly enough the only "kids" for the egg hunt were Kai and his cousin...2nd cousin? once removed? I don't know how it works... my cousin's daughter, Delia. So an almost 3 year old and a 1 year old. It was adorable. Sadly I don't have any pictures cause I was holding Des and Ben was taking video so they're all on my mom's camera.

After playing a bit and some dessert we took the boys home and gave them their Easter baskets from us (or The Easter Bunny). This was the best picture I got of that moment...

{Desmond's outfit didn't last the whole day}

Not super cute or posed, but pretty authentic for the stages my boys are in at the moment. Ben and I were actually cracking up at how Desmond was grabbing his bucket and trying to get to the stuff inside. Malakai loved the memory game and alphabet cards he got, but his most favorite "toy" has been the colorful eggs he collected over the past few days. On Monday he played with them almost all day...

Next up...Des' 6 month update. Yowza!

It's coming...

The gratuitous after-holiday blog post full of photos of us doing the traditional things will be coming soon. Sadly, all weekend long we've also had illness to deal with so we're recovering from the holiday events as well as a case of the sickies.
Be back soon...







P.S. I did bring my 365 page up to date. I was only about 9 days behind...yikes!

Thankful on a Thursday- gratefulness.

So I haven't posted a Thankful list in almost 2 months. Apparently when I hit 1000 I subconsciously thought it was time for a break. I didn't realize just how long it had been (felt like maybe a week or two) until I looked back to find the last post. Yikes!

I was reminded this past Sunday during a really great sermon how important gratitude is. I need to remember all the blessings on a daily hourly basis. It helps to keep the grumpies in check.

Here's a small list of some recent things that I have to be thankful for...

1001. my health. I've been whining about this lingering cold (or whatever it is) but looking at the big picture I'm relatively healthy.

1002. fun grandparents for my kids. Both my parents + Ben's parents are so playful with our boys, they are so blessed to have grandparents who are happy to get on the floor or go outside and play with them.

1003. food. If you've been to our home you know our kitchen is TINY. It's the source of much frustration on my part when I'm trying to prepare meals, especially big ones. I get really irritated when it comes to storing large items. I digress. I am just thankful to have a home, a kitchen, and food to fill our bellies.

1004. jobs. So many people are jobless right now and are forced to relocate for work, or worse. Ben + I are well aware of how precious our jobs are. Not just for the income they provide our family, but because we both enjoy what we do and who we work with.

1005. saving money. We are in the middle of a refinance on our home. We already had a super low interest rate, but we have an opportunity to save even more per month once we're on the other side of this tedious process.

1006. My children love each other. Desmond grins and gets so happy he can't help but squirm when he sees Malakai, especially first thing in the morning. Likewise, Kai lights up and giggles just being in his brother's presence. I really hope this lasts for years to come!

1007. a happy marriage. "They" all tell you that marriage is a lot of work, and it's true. It's also beyond worth it. I couldn't imagine going through life without Ben, he's my soft place to land after a hard day.

1008. knowledge. I'm learning so many things with the new part of my job and I'm even able to apply them to the job I've been doing for over a year now. It's so nice to work with people who are willing to teach me what they know and show me patience as I learn.

1009. friends. One of my very best friends just recently got engaged and I'm over-the-moon excited for her! I can't wait to celebrate her big day. I also just appreciate the rare opportunities to sit and visit with my girl friends. Let's try to meet up more often ladies!

1010. sleep. I don't nearly get enough these days, and we've just started sleep training with Desmond (resource: The No-Cry Sleep Solution.) but when I get a few consecutive hours it feels so nice!

Want to join me? Tell me what you're thankful for this week, or do a blog post of your own and link back, I'd love to read your list!

DIY: Reupholstered (and kid-proof!) Dining Room Chairs

Look everyone, I'm posting something on my blog besides an apology for not posting something on my blog in forever! Not only that, but it's a tutorial, which means I've made myself do something besides work recently!

This past weekend Ben + Kai played out back while I whisked Desmond away for a quick trip to the store. I wanted to get some groceries as well as some fabric as quickly as possible...so I went to the big fat Walmart because yes, they have both.

I've been meaning to reupholster my dining room chairs for at least 2 years now, ever since the cats we used to own tore up the original fabric. The desire to fix them up increased when Kai started spilling things on them after we moved him from a high chair to a booster. Now he insists on sitting in the chair without the booster and sadly this coincided with a potty training accident which left us with a ruined chair pad...so the need for new fabric (and padding!) became much more urgent.

I grabbed way too much fabric (I'm a total beginner at yardage and such) and just enough vinyl. Since I planned on using clear plastic vinyl over the fabric I just chose the cheapest version of what Ben + I both liked the most, which was a dark red. Then I asked the gal working there which weight of vinyl I should choose and she suggested the medium one. I also grabbed a small package of cotton batting to replace the ruined chair pad. It all came to about $25.

When I got home and the boys were down for nap, Ben helped me take the chairs apart. At first I planned on removing the fabric from all the pads but after how long it took for just the ruined one we decided that was far too much work and it would be fine to just cover the other 3 chairs.

Here's a little before picture of how bad the chairs looked, along with me working on taking one apart.

I had planned on taking the chair apart before going shopping to see what I was working with. That didn't happen which led to me wishing I would have purchased a foam chair pad instead of the cotton batting but I didn't want to waste precious time so I just used the whole roll to replace the one cushion. 

You can see the scratches from the cats on the pad to the right. We've been putting this off for FAR too long! The pad on the left is the batting I purchased which I just cut to a little bigger all the way around than the cushion, since the cushion had some overlap to go around the wooden seat of the chair. 

Then I used the cushions to roughly measure how big my squares of fabric + vinyl needed to be and cut. Next I ironed all 4 squares of fabric, while lamenting over having purchased far too much red fabric. Thankfully this is such a lovely color (my fave) so I'm sure I'll find other uses for it down the road. Lesson learned...and a much better one than having too little fabric. 

Somewhere in here the boys woke up and Ben left me to my project. As you can see my workspace was in our garage because in our teensy house there just isn't a lot of open space, especially once the boys are up and about.

Next I just put the fabric onto the table (Ben brought the dining room table out for me to have an elevated and clean work surface), then the cushion upside down on to the fabric and began stapling like crazy. I started at the front of the chair, stapled the middle and worked my way out to the corner of each edge. I also had to use a hammer since our staple gun is light-duty and the chair seats were rather thick.

When I got all the edges done I folded the corners as nicely and tightly as possible without making the fabric pucker on the other side.

I found all sorts of help online by searching for "reupholstering dining chair seat". Reading through a couple sites helped me visualize the best way to go about the process. Next though, I could find nothing on how to cover seats in vinyl. I wasn't so sure about how to fold the corners since a sturdy plastic doesn't fold or lay as nicely as fabric. I just had to figure it out myself.

I started the same way I had with the fabric, by doing all the edges first. When I got to the corners I had to figure out what would work best. I wanted to make sure to cover evenly but not have a bulky piece of plastic. I just snipped one edge (as pictured below) so that when I folded the corner up there was one less layer of plastic to work with. 

So I just kept going as I had with the fabric and stapled down all the corners by pulling tight around the edges. With the vinyl, there's a bit of space on each corner between it and the fabric, but it isn't very noticeable. Otherwise, my little technique worked! Take that internet!

All shiny and new! Next I traded posts with Ben and hung out with the boys while he attached the seats to the frames with the original screws. After just a few hours of work (including shopping for supplies!) we had new chairs!

I just love the way they look, they now match our kitchen decor. My favorite is how the red pops against the grey wall. Actually, my MOST favorite part is how my son can spill all over these and I can just wipe them off...

At this season in our life, having wipeable furniture is a must if anything is going to last through not one, but two toddler boys! Spill away kiddos, spill away!

After I did this I also got a tip from a friend that you can reupholster/kid proof furniture by using waterproof shower curtains as your fabric. Has anyone done this or something similar to toddler-proof at home? I just love a good tip to keep things from getting ruined or having to keep the boys off of certain things. Again, with the size of our house, it's just not very doable to have much be off limits. 

What's your favorite DIY?

still blogging

It has been hard to find time to blog since Desmond was born. The last 5 6 months have gone by faster than any time in my life prior. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again when we add to our number (yes, we'll probably have one more kiddo some day).

I have so much I want to document about my family, especially our children while they're young. I want to remember every little detail. I've been keeping track of Kai's milestones since he was a baby and now have a sheet of paper on the fridge just for writing his quotes down before I forget the hilarious or smart things he says. I also have one for Desmond's firsts and it's filling up quickly!

I also want to continue to write about the other areas of my life beyond motherhood; being a wife, a sister, an employee, daughter, friend, follower of Christ. I wish I had time to elaborate on the thoughts that pop into my head during a quick shower or the moments just before sleep. As much as I want more time to do these things, I know I'm doing exactly what I should be. I'm living out what I've always wanted most, and while it can be exhausting and it wears me down (I've been sick for almost 2 weeks now) it's my dream life and I'm so blessed that God has given me the desires of my heart.

In church today during the message I was inspired to at least get back to my Thankful on a Thursday posts. These always did me good to bring things back to perspective when my day or week (or month...) had been a bit rough. It's a direct way for me to reflect on my blessings and give the glory to God. I had also received a lot of feedback that it inspired others, so in a sense it's a win-win.So, next Thursday I'll be bringing that back...if I realize it's Thursday before it's already Friday!

In the meantime, I do the most updating on instagram these days since it's so quick and easy from my new phone. If you want to follow along with me there, my username is ShanLeAnn. You can also find me on twitter, although lately I must admit most of my tweets are my instagram photos!

Thanks to all of you who are still following along with me here: friends, family, acquaintances, and anonymous readers alike!