Picture frames!

Does anyone else have an aversion to those picture collages that are so popular?  I love them, but every time I show one to Matt he gets a headache!  We have a lot of blank walls in our house.  Partly because we painted and I never put everything back up, and partly because my husband doesn't like the look of cluttered walls.  I've actually come to embrace the sparsity. I've decided I would rather have nothing on the wall instead of just filling the space if I didn't love it.  But I LOVE photographs.  I have been wanting some pictures of the kids up for a long time.  I bought these frames at Michael's when they were having a buy one get one free sale.  I saw someone do something similar at their house and I loved the look.  It took a long time to finally get them hung up (with help from Marti of course).  Even with paper cut to the right size with the nail holes marked it was HARD to get everything lined up and level and there are a few extra holes.  

 Matt decided he could handle this.  I love the ornate details and that they are BIG.  The older I get the more I like a few BIG things instead of a bunch of little things on a wall.  I might switch them to more candid small group shots later but this is what I have up for now.  The main wall in our family room has NEVER had much on it until now!

I meant to take another picture with the couch in the picture after I folded Mt. Laundry but that didn't happen. Shocker.  I put them up a little higher so the kids won't bump into them.  I'm so happy to have them up!

Together at Last and Night Owls Nursery

Sorry it's taken awhile (I'm pretty sure every blog post from now on could start out like that...) but Miss Abigail did FINALLY come home on Tuesday July 6th. Those 2 days and 2 nights were some of longest of my life. I've never cried so much. I just kept thinking of her in there with strangers taking care of her because I couldn't leave her brother all the time. It's so much better having them together! If twins were meant to be separated they wouldn't come together.

Here's Oliver coming home with us on July 4th. It was so bitter-sweet because we were leaving Abigail at the same time. Look at that sad empty car seat next to him.

I wanted to show off a few of the projects my mom and I worked on while I was on bed rest.

I fell in love with these quilts at a very cute, very overpriced children's retailer- let's call them "Crockery Shed" so I won't get sued for copyright infringement or something:-) if you want to see the originals go to this link. I recommend never looking at their website if you want to be happy with other cheaper options, everything is way too cute! I was not willing to spend that much money but I had my heart set on them. Because I have an awesome mom she agreed to take them on for the twins baby quilts from her. Since this is much more involved than her normal quilts I helped as much as I could. I hand quilted almost one entire quilt by myself. All together we figure it took us 4 weeks of bed rest to make both quilts start to finish.

They only sell the girl version so we had to be more creative to make the boy version. I LOVE them! Notice the rick rack, coordinating backs, and the corduroy trunks on the trees.

One of the little girl birds. I taught myself 3 new embroidery stitches to do the beak and feet.

Now that I had a theme my sister Alyn crocheted these darling night owl hats. I can't wait for them to fit! Until then they are decorations. I did splurge and buy the sheet from "Crockery Shed". Target happened to have a boy owl sheet as well- how lucky!

I'd like you to meet Abby and Olly the owls! Again copied from "Crockery Shed's" expensive version. I made the pattern myself and had most of the pieces cut out when I went into labor. So this is what my mom worked on while I was in labor and finished them a few days later. How nice is that?! Charlotte points to them and says, "cute". My mom says they are very cute in an ugly kind of way. Owls are supposed to be quirky right?

Pockets on the back so miscellaneous items including future teeth for the tooth fairy can be stowed.

Abby and Olly the owls with the real Abby and Olly for their first 1 week picture! We're so glad to have them home!

Who's been wearing out MY sheets?

Indulge me- this is a random post.

When we got married we registered for some fancy-smancy 1 million thread count expensive sheets. Okay basically the best ones Target had. We were fortunate that we got 2 sets of these nice sheets as gifts since we never would have spent that much ourselves. We've been rotating between these two sets for the last 4 odd years.

Well the last time I changed the sheets I noticed there was a threadbare section only on MY side of the bed. So sad. Then yesterday I switched the sheets and discovered much to my suprise that the 2nd set of sheets also had a threadbare spot only on MY side of the bed. I guess it's not too much of a coincidence considering I'm pretty regular at switching between the sheet sets and they were given to us at the same time- but how odd is that? What really weired me out was why the threadbare section was only on my side.

Here are a few possibilities for how this strange phenomenon occured:
1. My bony elbows, knees, etc wore away the fabric more quickly than on Matt's side. Kind of like how your jeans either wear out on the knees or the tushy first.
2. Maybe they just both happened to be on my side when usually they are on Matt's side and he's really to blame for the premature sheet thinning

Yep- that's me wrapped up in the fitted sheet. I was making the bed and I decided to take a nap- then I got cold. Matt found me like this and decided to take a picture. On a side note can you believe we sleep in a queen sized bed? I can't either but that's a whole 'nother post.

3.This is what I think is the real reason. You know how carpet gets more worn in high-traffic areas like hallways? The millions of times I've gotten in and out of bed in the last year to feed, change, comfort, check-on Charlotte wore out the sheets (not to mention me) on my side of the bed years before the usual lifetime of the sheets. I now have irrefutable proof that I spend way too much time getting in and out of bed, right?

Can anyone belive she was that small just a year ago? I can't.

So getting out of bed at night isn't just hard on you it takes quite a toll on your bed linens as well. Now can I go register for some more fancy smancy sheets and one of you will buy them? Maybe that should be on the baby registry list!

The Baby Suite

Welcome to the baby's suite

It's not quite done ( I don't know if you're ever done decorating) but I've been working on getting the baby's room ready and I wanted to post pictures. I know I won't have the time to do as much for every baby but if we ever have another girl I will be set. I got the crib with a matching dresser/changing table off of Craigslist for about the 1/3 of the price new back in May. I could have found a cheaper one but not a matching set this nice of quality. The dresser is nicer than mine. It should last for all of our kids.My Aunt Donnie and cousins Natalie, Alison, Stefani, and Megan bought me the bedding set as a shower gift. The quilt is hanging on the wall as part of the decorations. The baby's room has 12 foot vaulted ceilings so I had plenty of room to hang large things. We debated painting the room. We just painted it white a year ago before the carpet got put in. Since it's the room right next to ours and the smallest it will probably always be the baby's room so I knew if we had a boy next I would regret my purple or yellow paint job and have to re-do it. The compromise was that I wouldn't make Matt paint if I could get some cute things to put up that would be easier to change or move to a new room. Hence the purple butterfly swag behind the bed and the pink butterfly mobile. When you turn on the ceiling fan it rotates. I used a JC Penny gift card left-over from our wedding to buy them so I didn't feel too bad. Matt said if we haven't used it in 3 years I might as well use it now. Someone from our ward was so nice to give us a good quality glider for free. The cushions were dark brown. They were very practical but I wanted something with more color. I found some gender neutral striped upholstery fabric on clearance. I was thinking of trying to make new covers myself but I wimped out and went to visit my mom to get "help". That's code for "my very talented mother did all of the work" while I worked on a quilt for her. She did an amazing job. I never stop being impressed with my mom's talents. It looks professionally done and she even matched the stripes and added cute red piping. I LOVE IT! Thanks mom you're the best for being willing to take on my projects! There are still a few things of mine in her closet but overall I cleaned it out pretty well. Here is her very cute wardrobe. Matt claims she has more clothes than him. I just tell him he doesn't change sizes every few months. These clothes go up to about 2 years but obviously most of them are the smaller sizes. Everyone loves to buy and lend baby clothes. Lucky us! I want to put her name above her bed in the middle of the swag but I'll have to wait until she's born and has a name. I'm still debating on making or buying curtains to make the room darker/cuter.
Credits:
-Thanks to Marti for coming to climb ladders, give me her opinions, and hang everything.
-Thanks to Matt for letting me have some fun making a girly room, for putting a very tricky crib together (who knew cribs can't fit though doorways), and hauling the heavy dresser
-Mom again for the awesome upholstery job.
-Aunt and cousins for the bedding
-Gail for the diaper champ
-and many many people for the clothes, toys, blankets etc.