Green and Pink Girl Room

This room, this boring, green, lackluster room, has been my three-year-old daughter's reality for the past two years.
I sent Studio Five a photo of her bedroom hoping that they'd consider her for their "bedroom makeover" segment. Unfortunately, Teenie doesn't have cancer or any of the other typical ailments that seem to qualify one for a bedroom makeover (although I did mention in the letter, with fingers crossed, her vertical impairment. No one at KSL cared. Trolls.).

So with a budget of only $250, I set out myself to give my little girl a complete bedroom makeover. I wanted to celebrate her "Tinkerbell-ness" without being too literal. Here's how it went down...

First step, new furniture. Our next door neighbors gave us this awesome, solid wood dresser.
And I hunted down this cute sleigh bed on ksl.com for $150, mattresses included.
Then I painted, painted and painted. The cub helped me with some of the details that women simply can't do with out a man's help. Good gracious me, what would I ever do without him?
Then came the bedding. I saw this gorgeous bedding from the Land of Nod, which I couldn't afford, but found something similar and almost as cute at Home Goods. I spent less than $65 for ALL of the bedding.
And I fashioned some rosettes onto a white pillow that I already had.
This is how the dresser came out. I used a free quatrefoil stencil from here.
Almost out of money, I had to get creative with the wall art (it's hard to tell, but this dresser is gigantic and needed something gigantic above it). I ended up finding a bunch of ugly old frames in the basement and spray painting them white. Then I found some cute fabric and, tah-da, ART! Only $30 for the whole project.

A few knick-knacks gave this room the perfect finishing touches: a silhouette made by my sister, Kristy, an antique bird, and statuette that happens to look JUST LIKE my daughter,
A Tinkerbell kitchen from Nana and Gampa.
And cute artwork by my friend Sarah.
I have a few more touches to add to this green and pink girl room (for me, there is no such thing as a finished project), but Teenie is thrilled by her new bedroom. But probably not as thrilled as I am!

How it Began

When I was pregnant with Doug, the ultrasound technician slipped out of the exam room and quickly returned with the physician, who took charge of the ultrasound wand with a concerned furl to her brow. Ryan and I were soon informed that the baby’s heart didn’t look quite right. No one explained what the repercussions of a heart with only three chambers might be, but the gravity of the problem wasn’t lost on us. I remember all of the “what ifs…” that circled my brain, but never touched my tongue out of horror that the scenarios might actually come true. What if this child will be disabled for life? What if he needs a heart transplant? What if he doesn’t… make it?

The next day we got a second ultrasound with similar findings and were sent to a hospital in Dallas for a fetal echocardiogram. To our relief, the cardiologist was able to locate all four of the chambers and told us that baby Douglas looked healthy as could be. We asked the cardiologist about the funky ultrasounds and he shrugged. “Maybe the way your fetus was positioned hid one of the ventricles from view.”

I have a different hypothesis.

Doug was born a healthy, hearty 8.2 pounds, but the doctor thought it best that we do an echocardiogram just to back the cardiologist’s findings. That’s when we found the holes.

The doctor said they were small and would likely fill in on their own, but I needed to visit a cardiologist when Douglas turned four. As we moved from place to place, Douglas switched pediatricians several times before his fourth birthday, none of them noticing the faint murmur that must have been present. This past year, remembering the instructions I was given when Douglas was born, I took Doug to a cardiologist to make sure the holes had closed up. Instead, we learned that the holes were bigger than we’d originally thought and, without repair, Douglas would not survive past thirty-five. Doug’s heart had already started to swell and the only way to fix the problem was open-heart surgery.

I believe that we would not have known about holes in Doug’s heart had it not been for the ultrasound scare we had while I was pregnant. Surely we would have found out later in his life when problems became more evident, more serious. But Heavenly Father wanted to give us the heads-up, even if He had to scare the boogers out of us to make it happen. Heavenly Father can be tricky like that sometimes.

Because Douglas was able to get this surgery early in life, his recovery was quick and—if you saw him today, one week later, you would agree—miraculous.

Utah Pride

People told me not to do it. They said it was "Utah Hair."

Well guess what? I like Utah. And I like Utah hair.

So here it is, Kiana's haircut (and this time, not at the hands of her naughty big brother.)

A-lined and stacked in back. Just so you know, we condition her hair in green jello because that's what people from Utah do.

And here is Doug. He is five today. I love him.

Birfday Girl

Today the teenie koala turned three! She celebrated by choosing her outfit (she was a lady bug),

receiving lots of snuggles from Mom and Dad,

getting totally awesome presents,

sleeping in a brand new big girl bed,
and, her favorite part of all, carrying around balloons, all day!

My you are loved, sweet girl! Happy birthday!

Flexin' My Crafty Muscles

I fell in love with this 3D Solar System from Pottery Barn Kids. It would be perfect for the cub, who loves all things science. Unfortunately, the product was discontinued, and let's face it, who would pay $70 for a few balls of plastic any way? Pshah!

So I made, yes made, this. Myself.
Granted, it looks like a junior high science project, but may I mention that it is HUGE? Twice the size of the Pottery Barn business. AND it was made with love.

After I was finished, I had Ryan hang it up. Doug thanked HIM for making the wonderful Solar System Whaaa!?

My Table

Was your Thanksgiving as lovely as mine? I hope so! This year I hosted the holiday at my house. If anything will make you feel like a bona fide adult, pulling a steaming turkey from the over would be it.

And if anything will make you feel like a bona fide Mormon, sewing your own table runner and napkins would be it.

Humor me as I show off my cute Thanksgiving table:

And humor me as I show off the kids table. The cub set it all by himself and, boy, was he proud.

Just finished refurbishing my grandpa's old oak dresser for Doug. You like?