Tuesday Phone Dump

I have come to the conclusion that my "real" camera is a lost cause.  I carted that thing around Disney for 4 hours yesterday and only snapped one picture.  I took a ton of pics on my phone because it was always handy and faster.  Shrug.  I guess iphone-quality pics will have to do. :) 

Two weekends ago, Eric single-handedly made one of my house dreams come true. If you are my friend on FB, you know how much I loathe that silly vent under our TV in the playroom.

Now, a little background information: This room is the very first thing you see when you walk in our front door.  According to the builder, it was supposed to be a "living room".  Pre-children we made it our dining room since it looked nice with a long dining room table and chairs.  But as Whitney's toys overflowed from our small playroom and baby #2 was on the way, we made the decision to turn the dining room into a playroom.  It is, afterall, the largest space in our home, and our children occupy the largest place in our hearts......and they have the most crap. So it made sense.

When we made it into a "new playroom" (which Whitney STILL calls it, almost a year later), we lined bookcases and had to figure out a way to leave that dumb white vent uncovered since its apparently critical to the function and health of our air conditioning unit.  

See? Eric cut the back out of the bookcase to make it work. 

Eh. 

It was functional but I hated it.  Yeah, I know.  What a huge problem.  "Too many toys..." boo hoo. Poor us.  But I hated it.  I felt like anyone who visited our home was welcomed into a mini version of Toys R Us.  But a disorganized, messy Toys R Us the day after Black Friday.  Just overwhelming and gross.

And I was noticing that Whitney wasnt playing with a LOT of her toys and suspected it was because she was overwhelmed with how much STUFF there was in her face.

So after much measuring and research and a scouting trip with my mom, Eric and I made the trek to IKEA with Grady in tow.

This is Eric's version of "shopping with Grady". 

We piled three tall bookcases, a desk, a bridge, and all kinds of doors into the Jeep....and even had enough room to safely-ish squeeze Grady and his stroller inside. 

When we got it all home, Eric got right to work.  He was like a kid at Christmas! He LOVES building stuff like this and I LOVE that he LOVES it :) 

We He worked through the wee hours of the morning and finally called it a day at about 4am.  

Toys R Us explosion meets IKEA explosion:

See how the desk leaves that silly vent open?? Smart.  I know. :) 

The next day we had dinner planned at my parents' for Grandparents' Day and my grandfather's 92nd birthday, so we grabbed some extra bins and supplies at Walmart with our other happy shopper child:

And when the day was done, we had a pretty fabulous, more grown-up version of a playroom :) 

Isnt Eric the BEST!? I know. Im blessed.  In the ten days since he made this happen, we havent even sat in the family room once.  We spend 99% of our time in the playroom and its awesome! Totally love it.  And IKEA rocks! We got the matching chair in their "scratch and dent room" for half price, and we Eric didnt encounter ONE issue while building! No missing parts or screws.   No dented pieces or scratched panels. No mis-fitting pieces.  It all goes together so seamlessly! Im in love. :)

These two love it, too:

Infant Whitney = feared and loathed the ball popper

Three Year Old Big Sister Whitney = LOVE the ball popper

The best part is, Whitney has been pulling out ALL of her toys now.  Games, puzzles, "guys", barbies, etc. AND, because we have more storage in the playroom, we were able to move things around in her room and fit her play kitchen in there! (It had been living in a closet at my parents' house for about a year. Shes so happy to have it back!)

While Eric built the new playroom and the kids napped, I made some cupcakes to celebrate Grandparents' Day and G.G.'s 92nd birthday!

Whitney put her handprint on a pot for some herbs for Mac and Gramps.  I had every intention of putting Grady's handprint on the other side of the pot, but 4 month olds and paint dont mix very well. Ill tackle that project soon :) 

We went over to Mac and Gramps' house for a delicious dinner!

Grady wishing GG a happy birthday :) 

And am I the only one who cant belieeeeeve its been a year since this pic was taken!?:

And I still cant believe the Dude is here and healthy and happy and ours!

LOVE them!

(After a recent hilarious conversation with my sister-in-law, Lynzie, I am confident that I am NOT the only mother who would pay $1,000,000 if it meant we could get that perfect picture of our kids smiling and looking at the camera every single time.  Its hard enough getting an infant to look at the camera, but add in a three-year-old diva who insists on rolling her eyeballs RIGHT as her little bro finalllllllly decides to smile at the camera instead of staring blankly?? I end up sweating from head to toe and its a wonder any of our family members are speaking to one another when that final picture is snapped!

And then there are those days or moments when the stars align and some angel is smiling down upon us with mercy and we actually get a GREAT pic of BOTH kids.

And I dont know about your house, but at OUR house those stars align and that angel has mercy on us ONLY when our kids are in their jammies or lookin' like a hot mess.

Sigh.

I guess I will take what I can get!

And not only is this little girl the BEST big sister in the whole wide world...........

,......she is also SUPER, DUPER smart and knocking her teacher's socks off!

She had her Beginning-of-the-Year assessment at school on Friday and she blew it outta the water.  

Days of the week? check. Months of the year? check x 12! 

Shapes? Colors? Letters and their sounds? check! check! check!

She recognized her own name and the name of a classmate she has a little crush on :)

She is LOVING school and that makes us so proud!

She always liked school last year but Im not sure she LOOOVED it.  She liked the socialization but Im not sure it was very challenging for her.  She learned some cool stuff like the Pledge of Allegiance and a few songs, but she is talking about galaxies and comets and dinosaurs being extinct and all kinds of fabulous things when I pick her up every day.  She runs into school and cant wait to see what book is at her seat.  She talks and laughs about her classmates and the silly things they say and do.  And we hear "Mrs. Cardona says...." all. day. long. :) She really loves it and is challenged and is excited about learning, which makes me really glad we made the change to the new school.

Her teacher was super impressed and told me that Whitney knew EVERY single concept they test for, and that she was impressed because Whitney is one of the younger students in the class! 

SO proud of this girl :)