Surprise!

This post is way overdue.... I should have posted these pictures last month, but somehow it just didn't get done. So I figured I would share them now. On January 19th, John's oldest brother Mike and family, who live in Houston, flew in to spend the weekend in Chicago. The occasion was their father's 60th birthday. John along with his siblings planned to take their dad to see the Blackhawk's game on Friday and then the following day we hosted a surprise birthday party at our house.

It was fun to have Mike, Mary and their 4 children spend the weekend at our place. Anabelle is always thrilled to spend time with her cousins and this time was no different. She definitely wore them out and wanted to play every minute! Being from Houston, they are used to warmer weather and although our Winter has been VERY mild, of course that weekend we had to dip down to the single digits and get hit with the biggest snow storm of the season. While it was an inconvenience for travel, the kids loved the snow! I was sure to get lots of pictures of them having a ball.

Giana 10, Donte 16, Taylor 12, Dominick 7

Snow fight!

Snow angels

Anabelle loved being pulled around in her sled, and with so many cousins there was always someone willing to do it.

The kids decided to build a small hill.

Here is Giana pushing Anabelle down the little hill on a garbage can lid, with lots of laughing. Finally it was so dark, we had to drag them all inside for dinner. They were a lot of fun to watch!

John has 4 siblings; Mike, Joe, Zac and Abby. The boys planned to take their dad to the game on Friday night, and despite the snowstorm everyone made it down town and they had a great night. Although he knew about the game, John's Dad Mike didn't know that his son Mike was going to be in town, so that was a great surprise for him. The boys all had fun and the Blackhawk's even won-yay!

Joe, John, Zac, Mike, Dad

The next day we had 6 of John's Dad's siblings over, along with all of his children, and grandchildren. He was very surprised and we had a fun night, eating and celebrating. It was nice to have everyone together, it doesn't happen often enough.

Looking at old photos.

Cake!

A rare whole family photo.

All of Mike's kids; Mike 36, John 32, Abby 17, Zac 24, Joe 26

Mike, Mary, and kids.

Not the best picture of me, but Anabelle looks so darn cute I had to put it in.

Mike and his wife Pat with 6 of his siblings

Donna, Mary, Kay, Dennis, Mike, Denise, Maureen and Pat

Happy 60th Birthday Mike!!

Our Valentine's Day

My sweetheart got me some beautiful roses for Valentine's Day... he is such a good husband :)

Last night I went to craft night with my friends with the idea to whip up a little purse/tote bag for Anabelle for Valentine's Day. I brought along some scrap fabric that I had hanging around and with some help from my fellow crafters, I was able to sew this cute bag for Miss Belle. I used an old pair of jeans and some pink gingham fabric for the heart pocket and lining. It was my first experience with lining something and it was kinda a pain in the butt. Not sure that I'll be doing that again! The end result is somewhat close to what I envisioned, but cute none-the-less.

Before I went to bed I stuck the goodies that we got for Anabelle in her bag, waiting to be opened in the morning. A Winnie the Pooh book and stuffed animal and some play dough.

Here she is in the morning, checking out her goodies.

Lately, she has been becoming more interested in Winnie the Pooh, which is a nice break from Blues Clues.

While I cooked breakfast, Anabelle played with her new play dough.

Heart shaped pancakes with red sprinkle sugar and sausage-Yum!

Then we decided to go out to the mall for a little shopping and to visit with Grandma. Here she is packing up her new purse to take to the mall.

The rest of the day was spent taking a nap, playing, and having dinner with Daddy. After dinner, we decided to take a special trip to Colonial Cafe for ice cream sundaes. Anabelle was a big fan of her brownie sundae.

We had a great day, hope you all had a Happy Valentine's Day too!

All Aboard!

Almost every morning Anabelle and I drive John to the train station. It's nice that Anabelle gets to see Daddy in the morning and we get a few minutes to chat before he is off to work and we start our day. A couple of months ago Anabelle became much more interested in the actual train, each day after Daddy gets out of the car we have to sit and watch the "choo-choo". We talk about the doors, all the people getting on, people who are late and run to get on the train, the conductor who waits by the doors, and then once the doors close and the train is moving, we have to wait and see the big blue engine at the end. I have been wanting to take Anabelle on a train ride for a while and it just seemed to always be a busy time. Well now that we have stopped planning things and are playing the waiting game for Charlotte, we have some free time for fun things like train rides.

My Mom and I decided to take a short trip to Downers Grove, just a 10 minute train ride from Naperville. They have a nice down town area, where we could walk around a little bit and then have a snack. They used to have a train themed restaurant called 2Toots, but they recently closed and moved to Glen Ellyn. It is a very popular and fun place to take kids, so we will have to go there some other time. While in Downers Grove we went to a diner called Kristina's, it was very good, we had hot chocolate and stuffed french toast-yum! We also walked around a fun toy store called My Favorite Toy Store, a really neat place that we will have to go back to the next time we need some toys. We had a great trip!

In Naperville, waiting for the train to come.

Here's my ticket!

Looking out the window.

Wow! We are going fast, look at all of those places outside.

Time to get off the train.

What a fun trip!

Anablelle had such a great time, that we will have to take a longer trip when the weather gets warmer. I would love to take her down town to meet Daddy for lunch some day.

Ok Charlotte, your room is ready... you can come out now

I finally finished Charlotte's room, yay! Prior to becoming a nursery, this room was our guest room. It was already painted this aqua color when we moved in, and after thinking for a while about what color I wanted to repaint it for Charlotte, I decided I actually liked the aqua and was gonna stick with it. Since the corner cabinet and rocking chair were cream colored, I decided to stick with that color and add in some pale pink to bring in some girly-ness. Overall I am pretty happy with how it turned out, I think it looks very sweet and simple for our little girl. Here is the tour...

View from the door.

The crib is the same one that Anabelle used, it is still in pretty good shape with the exception of some marks from Miss Anabelle chewing on the rails. Gotta love teething babies :) I am working on a solution to cover them up.

For now the bassinet is being stored in here, but once Charlotte arrives, it will be moved into our bedroom for a few weeks. I had the hardest time finding simple valances for the windows in this room, so I finally broke down and sewed some of my own. They are very plain, so I may add some detail if I can find a light pink trim that I like, but for now they do the trick.

Eventually the memo board over the changing table will hold photos of family and friends holding baby Charlotte.

We got the glider when Anabelle was born, and I love it! So glad it fits in Charlotte's room too.

I made the plaques hanging over the crib out of a thin canvas covered in scrapbook paper and then hung with ribbon. I plan to have Charlotte's hand and foot prints added to them as well as a family photo from her birth day.

I also used some extra scrapbook paper and ribbon to update this frame we had. Here is baby Charlotte hanging out in the womb.

And of course a girl has to have a stocked closet. Here are all the newborn size clothes, cleaned and waiting for little miss to arrive.

Hope you enjoyed the tour, hopefully our little baby will make her debut soon and be able to enjoy it too!

Party in Anabelle's room!

Anabelle's room has gotten a makeover in the last few months. I wish I had taken pictures of what her room looked like before. I can't believe it, but I looked back through old photos and I don't have any- which is unlike me. So you'll just have to make do with the new and improved room photos, and imagine what the old one looked like. Her room used to be a dark sage green, with a crib, changing table, rocking chair, and pink and white accents.

This makeover has taken quite a while because we did it in stages. The first thing to go was the crib, and it happened so quickly that I wasn't quite ready for it emotionally. I know that sounds silly, but it's a big step when your baby no longer sleeps in her crib. In early December we put her new twin bed in her room, just the mattress and box spring on the floor. We'll put some rails and a headboard on eventually, but right now I like the bed low to the ground for her. I shouldn't be surprised anymore because she has always been good with transitions like this, and a new bed was no different. She fell out of bed twice and hasn't since. She stays in bed and doesn't get out till we open the door in the morning. All we had to do was firmly tell her once or twice that she needed to stay in bed. Now when she wakes up in the morning, she yells out "Get out please!" and we get up and open her door and she hops out of bed. We try to be pretty prompt, so that she keeps up this routine. However, there have been a few occasions where I was in the middle of something and she had to wait a little bit and she still stays in bed- even after nap too. I am sure one of these days she will start getting out of bed and that is fine, but for now this is a good system we have going.

Once we were sure she was going to be ok in the new bed, it was time to work on decor. John painted her room one weekend in early January and then I began looking for fabric to make curtains. Since I was also working on baby Charlotte's new room too, it has taken me longer than I would like to complete both rooms. But I am happy with Anabelle's new room, and more importantly- so is she! Wanna take a look?

Here is the view from the door.

Anabelle and I picked out her sheets and blanket from Target. We looked at everything and then I gave her 3 sheet sets to choose from, and 3 blankets to choose from. That way we were both happy with what we got. I like the colorfulness of her room. After having a room of only pink, green, and white, since birth- it is nice to bring in some new bright colors.

These letters were a gift from Darcy when Anabelle was born, they used to be painted white with green and pink gingham ribbon. Anabelle has always had them hanging in her room and loved to look and them and talk about how to spell her name. I wanted to still use them, but they needed a little updating. I covered them with fabric that coordinated with her curtains and pennant banner and then changed the ribbon to white. She loves them!

I had seen these pennant banners all over the internet in nurseries and children's room and at parties. I had even made some out of paper for Anabelle's 1st birthday party. I love how they look and think they are perfect for a little one's room. I made this one out of fabric that I bought to match the curtains that I made. It was very easy to make and adds some bright color to this large wall in Anabelle's room. She calls it her "flag".

At the foot of Anabelle's bed is her toybox, a birthday gift from her Uncle Mike- can you believe he built it himself?! Right now she keeps all of her stuffed animals in there. Her lamp also got an update. It used to have a pink and green gingham shade, but we switched out the old shade for a new brighter, more simple shade with a green trim. On the wall I hung a shelf that holds her piggy banks, snow globes, and bells- basically all the things I don't want her to break :) Then I have her hand and foot prints framed.

I love having Anabelle's hand and foot prints in her room. Every year on her birthday I have her do a new set and then hang them up. I keep all of the past ones in the back on the frame. I used a scrap of the fabric from her curtains to be the back ground for the prints. Then I hung the frame with a cute pink ribbon.

Here we are back to Anabelle's bed, notice her little pillow, heart pillow (a gift from her Aunt Abby) and her "Ba" (the pink bear, which was a gift when she was born from Aunt Steph and Uncle Mike). These are all of the things she can't sleep without. Good thing her bed is bigger now, because it sure is getting full.

To the left of her bed we have her new curtains. I had been having a difficult time finding fabric that I liked when one day we were at Hobby Lobby and I saw this fabric- I know it is bold and looks like something out of the 60s, but I love it! Luckily Anabelle agreed with me. I just sewed a simple flat valance, but I am thinking I might like a fuller more ruffled look, so in my spare time (haha!) I might change them up a bit.

Underneath the window we have her new bookshelf, a Christmas gift from John and I. I had looked for a while online to find a display bookshelf, I like how she can easily see the titles, this is where we keep her current favorites! Next to the bookshelf we have a basket to hold the smaller board books that often get lost on the bookshelves.

Finally on the last wall we have a big shelf that holds more books, and some toys for her to play with in her room. It is a new thing for Anabelle to have toys in her room, but I think it is nice for her to have her own space where she can play independently. I also think that once Charlotte comes along, she will be happy to have her own personal space for toys that are important to her and that she doesn't want her little sister to touch.

Above her shelf, Anabelle has a weird little storage cubby. It comes in handy for storing diapers, blankets, and any other odds and ends that don't fit in her closet. On the door of the cubby, I decided to hang a bulletin board where Anabelle can hang pictures, art work or cards. I took a large picture frame that I found at a thrift store and removed the glass. Then I glued cork tiles to the back of the frame. Finally I covered the frame with fabric scraps from her curtains.

Well that's it, Anabelle's new room, I am so glad that she likes it as much as I do. Of course there is always room for improvement. A friend of mine suggested a space to hang art work, and I love that idea, so I think that we may have one more change in the future. I am thinking of making a display area on the large wall under her pennant banner. It is bittersweet, but I love how her room looks like a little girls room now, and not a baby nursery.