Preschool Graduation

If they would have just called it "last day of school" I would have been fine, but of course they have to call it "Preschool Graduation" so naturally I was a crying mess.  I was pregnant with Sam when I took Tanner to his first day of preschool 2 1/2 years ago and I cried then.  We've been preparing for this day for 2 1/2 years and it's still hard for me to stomach that he's going to be a Kindergartener, and then the next thing you know he's off to college or getting married. I said to myself last night that in 10 years (and 2 months) I'm going to have a 16 year old and I can't handle it. The years fly by now and someone put it best when they said that at this age that the kids are the days are long but the years go by so fast. It's completely true.

Anyway, so we have a graduate now and I feel confident that he is as ready as he'll ever be for Kindergarten, and I'm so excited for his journey.


                           January 2010: First day of school-3 1/2 yrs old

                                                         Doesn't even look back... *tear*

                                                                   
                                                                  Tanner and Owen

    

                                                                        Lot's of snow!

                                                                   Me and my baby ;)

                        August 2011: First Day of last year of preschool

                                         Last day of preschool...gifts for the best teachers ever!

                                    Graduation ceremony...starts with the "Good Morning" song

 

                                                    Getting their class hats and certificates!

                                                                 Tanner and Carter

                                            Kait and Tanner (buds and future Kindergartners:)

                                            Tanner and Ms. Betsy and Ms. Jan (love them!)

                                                                    THE GRADUATE!!

                                                                     A proud family!

                                                                  Tanner and Grandpa

                                                                 Mommy and Tanner

                                                                   Daddy and Tanner

Tanner's Big Kid Room

     We've made lots of progress in Tanner's room.  We've been working on his room for 4 months now, and I don't know if I'm happy or sad that it's pretty much complete. I had so many fun projects with this room and it's kind of sad that it's coming to an end. Of course I've maxed out last month's budget while trying to complete it, nothing new there of course, but I am waiting on a couple more items to make Tanner's room more complete.  I purchased Tanner's comforter, rug and curtains last summer so I've had a lot of time to ponder what else we wanted to do in his room.  The navy and white stripes were the best idea I've had so far in the new house (in my opinion).  Terrifying at first yes, but none the less the kid is absolutely ecstatic about them.  I opted not to paint the other walls with stripes for fear it might make the room appear smaller than it already is.  Plus, I'm actually really surprised at my decision to do navy and white stripes because of the dark trim and doors throughout the house.  I love, love, love white trim in homes, but since our house is new we are not going to change to trim quite yet ;)  The more I thought about it, I didn't want the dark color of the wood to hold us back with how we wanted to decorate his room.  I felt limited with options, but decided to go against the grain (so to speak) and just go with my heart in choosing paint and furniture for the space.

I decided on a very light gray blue color for the other 3 walls and I think I lightens up the room a lot. 
    
 To save some money on furniture I painted the old dresser white and an old nightstand as well.  Tutorials here and here.

I wanted to keep it simple on the crazy striped walls so I just added some sweet photos of the kids together in white frames to break it up a bit. 

Tanner loves his books along with doing art 24/7 so I bought a black bookcase for book storage and a couple of lime green storage ottomans for him to keep his toys and art in. 

 We mounted Mike's old snowboard that he doesn't use anymore above his closet for some unique, funky, sporty (and free) decor.  Tanner has been giving his input and opinions all along the way so he was involved with most of the decisions.  I wanted him to feel like he was a part in his room remodel so he would really love it!

Last but not least, THE MAP, ahhh, yes the map.  It was an  idea I had a while back and while Mike wasn't sold on the idea, I pulled one of my "trust me" phrases and sold or not he was onboard.  Thanks Mike!  And, thanks to my handy hubs-o-lot he helped me get the map on the wall and framed out with our homemade frame.  It's a hit! Now the kids can see where all our family and friends live across the U.S., where daddy travels to on his trips, and pointing out different countries.
    
While the room isn't finished, it's pretty close.  

Things on my list to do still:

 Make a headboard
Get a couple fun throw pillows for his bed
Fix the broken old chair that belonged to me as a kid
Get a table lamp for his nightstand
Maybe paint the chair and table legs
Frame and hang some of his art work on the bare wall
Make C.D.'s of some of his favorite country songs for his CD player
Paint the inside of his closet (because I have nothing else to do)
Get some storage baskets for the top of his closet


The inspiration for the room was Tanner himself of course.  Fun, Creative, unique but also relaxing.  While, the stripes on the wall give the room a slightly nautical feel, there was no real theme in the room.  He is my little artist so I wanted to make sure I met all his creative instincts when piecing his room together.  He has more energy than any kid I've ever met, so I also wanted a room that he could relax in at night and just feel like it is special just like him.  

Come along for a tour...

It's still a work in progress but it's now a cheery, fun room for our almost 6 year old to be himself in.

A tutorial on how we wallpapered the world map poster and framed it coming soon.  It was Mike's favorite idea of mine ever (wink, wink)

Painting a nightstand

I decided that I liked the dresser I painted for Tanner's room so much, why not try to paint a nightstand for him too. I snagged my old college nightstand from my mom's house that I faux painted green and blue "crackle" paint (I know...*sigh*). I did sand it down a little bit with 100 grit sandpaper (prob could have used some with more grit or used a circular sander) but I didn't it need to be super smooth or perfect, because my boy will beat the crap out of it anyway. Oh, and when I talk about sanding I do my best to pretend I know what I'm talking about.

However, painting furniture is a great, inexpensive way to update old funiture to make it look new!  It's my new favorite thing, because I'm on a budget and it's a quick decorating fix.

Lesson learned: Do not sand outside when it is super windy, and wear sunglasses so the dust doesn't get in your eyes, ugh.

Here is most of the nightstand I was so proud of 10+ yrs ago without the drawers b/c I forgot to take a pic of the total before product




I'm sure there are 100 better ways of doing this out there than I chose, but I'm on a budget and I have limited time.

STEPS:

1. Sanding it down



2. Making sure to get around the bottom edges where there were some previous dried paint bubbles and even some splintering going on



Here is the end product, again this was a bit different than the dresser becaue it was real wood and had the texture of the previous crackle paint. The dresser was maybe vaneered wood? I don't even know if that's what it's called, but it was really smooth. You can still see the crackle texture through the paint, but again, I don't care much :)

I used the extra navy  paint I used for his walls for the knobs.  You can't really tell that there are stars on them.  And there we have it, a free nightstand for T-man's room!

Stay tuned for pics of Tanner's new room!

In case you missed it here is the dresser I painted for his room as well.

Easter Fun!

I can't believe it's already been a week since Easter.  We had a really fun weekend with the kids.  Saturday we died Easter eggs and Sam ended up getting really mad because she couldn't stick her whole hand + the egg in the coloring liquid...REALLY mad. 

None the less they had fun plopping them in different colors and putting stickers all over them.

                                              

                                              Still mad...hey, you can't please everybody 

                             I know there's 2 almost identical pics here, but this one is good of Sam...

                                                       ...And this one is good of Tanner.

I don't have photos of the next activity because it was a little chaotic.  With a screaming toddler and 2 messy kids it was time for bath.  Since Sam recently had a scary experience in the tub during normal "rinse the shampoo out of your hair" time and inhaled a bunch of water, she's now TERRIFIED of the bath and screams bloody murder every time.  I got creative this night...

"Who wants to go have beach party in the tub??"

Well of course they both thought the idea of everyone getting in their bathing suits and getting in the bath, including mom, sounded super fun!  So off we went, we laid out our towels, filled the tub with bubbles and turned on the music in the bathroom and had a beach party.  I must admit, it helped.  Sam did really and there were a couple of things that really helped her not to "freak out".
                              1) the foaming shampoo that I let the kids use themselves
                              2) a squirt bottle I found that I gently squirted Sam's hair with water so she could barely tell.

By the end of it, nobody wanted to get out of the tub, and Sam was actually the last one out!  Because I overestimate my children's cleanliness it's now a week later and I realize we haven't had another bath, whoops!  I'm going to try for beach party again with just the kids this time and see how it goes.  Although Tanner takes mostly showers now, but loves to take baths and play with his toys.

EASTER MORNING:

Usually the Easter bunny hides eggs along with the kids' Easter baskets around the house, but since he couldn't find all of the extra plastic eggs he skipped that part.  So the kids found their baskets along with their goodies and it was all downhill from there...

                      Toby's got her eyes on the cookies. She is always waiting for her opportunity.

Next we went to brunch at our favorite breakfast place with Matt and Cally and the kids and Grandpa Mike.  Everybody behaved (thanks to a couple IPads and some crayons).

EASTER AFTERNOON:

Let's see, of course I was able to get out to the golf course for a little practice while the kids took a nap before our big family dinner.  They had a blast in the huge bouncy house aunt P and uncle R rented.  Of course we had a couple casualties, but overall everyone survived without too many injuries.

LET THE EGG HUNT BEGIN!!

                                                                      Who ME??

                            It took an injury in the bounce house before we had our first break!

Till next year...