Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Oh I am so excited!! It has been decorating central over in the Walter pad! No major projects but just a few things I have been wanting to do to personalize our already awesome house! The project we started and finished today (oh, that's the best feeling, to get something completely DONE!) was framing the master bathroom mirror.

Here is the before- I love how HUGE the mirror is and we just needed to spruce it up a bit:

So, we headed on over to Home Depot and purchased three 8 foot pieces of dark cherry colored finished wood moulding and a saw thing-a-ma-jig that makes cutting at an angle easy. We prob should have just spent the extra money on an electric saw since they weren't too expsensive and I plan on framing the rest of the mirrors and putting up more chair rail, but it still did it's job!

Oh, how I love my hubby!! He's totally the best- he does not really care too much about doing these projects since we live in a brand new house, but he does them anyway since I want them done!

All the cutting of the edges was supper easy, but then we had to cut notches in the top of the wood to make room for the things that mount the mirror to the wall. I know there's a way to get back mounts for a mirror but we didn't want to deal with taking the mirror down and all that junk.
Once the pieces were cut to size we used some of this stuff on the backside to glue it to the wall and mirror:

Hard at work, with my little helper supervising

See how we had the liquid nails on the top and bottom? Well, once it put it on the mirror you could totally see glue reflecting back at you, so we had to take it down and wipe up this goopy mess

Here our little helper was photographer as we were cleaning the mirror:

So once we figured that out, we put the liquid nails on the rest of the pieces and stuck them to the mirror.

And now for the finished product!!!

Before:

After:

I think it turned out so good!! I totally love that it matches the cabinets perfectly and it just adds that extra something!!

Now, it's not totally perfect, but what DIY project is?? Especially since this is the first time we ever attempted something like this.

The bottom didn't go flush on the mirror because of the bottom of the mount for the mirror made it stick out a little, so the edges of the wood didn't match perfect, but a little wood marker over the glue once it dries should work.

And the notches we cut out at the top actually turned out great, just looking at the mirror looks like that's how it should be!

One more project down, a couple more in progess! Keep posted if you're interested in our pantry and laundry room spruce up!

House Stuff

*Warning: Blogger sucks and apparently I can't upload pictures in the correct order or move them around, so the befores and afters should be switched :)


Moving into a brand new house is a glorious thing, everything is perfect and ready to be lived in- except it totally squashes ANY motivation to do anything to your home. We have been in the house for about 8 months now and I'm finally getting tired of the white walls and am starting to do something about it. Before this, I have never painted in my entire life, unless you count glitter splatter paint in my childhood room, which I do not count that as actually painting. Anyways, at first I wanted to just add a couple accent walls, so we painted a yellow wall in Hannah's room and a sage green in ours:
After

Before

I'm happy with our room, but I do want to add curtains to the big window to get some more color in there. Now with Hannah's room, every time I walked in there I felt like it was not done so I set out on a little DIY project and it was so much fun! After I painted the rest of the room yellow and the bottom half pink (p.s. straight line chalk markers are AMAZING) my dad came over to help put a chair rail up, and it only took us about half the day, not too bad!! Below pictures are completely out of order...

The chair from Hannah's nursery, I LOVE this little reading chair for her but I want to get some bright pink fabric and cover it, since I am SOOOOOO not crafty I haven't attempted this yet but it is on my to do list!

The lamp from her nursery- dressed up with a little bright pink spray paint and I love that the lamp shade is white with light yellow stripes on it, it goes perfect with the yellow in her room.

Her wall of shelves- I was so not smart about these, I purchased dark wood shelves and went about spra painting them white. They look good now but I would have saved so much time and energy if I had just waited until I found cheaper white or even bright pink shelves- which I happened to stumble across at Target literally the next week after I painted these!! Grrrrrrrr Oh, well live and learn! Anyways, I love that there is a spot to put pictures, her letter H, and piggy bank- my favorite is the picture of her and Cinderella, which is the perfect place to display her princess autograph book from Disneyland! Oh how smart is that?!! Until I thought to put it there, that book had been sitting in a drawer all alone!

Part of her finished room- I still want to put a mirror there and Nick is trying to convince me the tv we have in the extra room would go perfect there...

Her finished room!! I just ordered 3 nylon butterflies that I plan to put on the wall above her bed.

The next project was the downstairs bathroom- nothing crazy here just a little light blue paint on the walls, I love how that color goes with the browns already in there!
Next on my agenda is to find soemthing to go on the wall above the toilet- either sconces with candles or maybe a picture of some sort... I'll know it when I see it!

Here's the bathroom when we moved in, so plain. Paint can really dress a room up!

I want to paint our bathroom and Hannah's bathroom next- since I've already got sage green towels and the green wall in our room I'm thinking tan walls, just to add something.

And the laundry room- I've got a lot of light blue paint leftover so I figured slap that on the walls in here! Nick thinks it's crazy to paint a laundry room, but I think it would be nice to have a pretty place to throw dirty clothes into the drum!

Our house is slowly coming together, I LOVE this place and just want to add some color to liven it up! I'm a little afraid of color because I never know if it's going to turn out how I see it in my head, but so far my projects have gone pretty well. Stay tuned to see what other changes we make...

I know it's been a long time...

Apparently time as seriously gotten away from me and the summer is almost over!! As I look back over the last couple of months I realize how busy we have actually been and I've been enjoying our hot summer days and haven't been updating our blog! Sorry to anyone that actually reads this! Without further ado, here is a glimpse at our summer time fun...

This summer we have enjoyed LOTS of yummy otterpops- any color will do for our little princess, she's not too picky when it comes to this summer time favorite!
A certain 3 year old learned how to pump on the swings a couple weeks ago, we were at the park when all of a sudden she runs over to the swings, hops on, and just starts going!! I've got no idea where this talent came from all of a sudden, but she sure is good at it.

Hannah had fun riding her "steerin bike" and enjoying the weather outside. Just relaxing in the warm sun...

This summer brought some visitors from Oregon. Great Grandpa and Grammy came to town and Hannah couldn't have been more thrilled. She enjoyed doing puzzles with Grammy and sitting on the couch Great Grandpa.

We went to Six Flags for the first time this year. Hannah loved seeing all the animals and she went on every ride she was tall enough for- she didn't even want us to go on the rides with her this time! I can't believe how big and independent she is getting.

Another first this summer- driving range with Daddy! Daddy bought her her own pink club that is just the right size and she went to town- for about 5 minutes until the geese distracted her! :)

4th of July was a blast! We spent it just the 3 of us and it was so nice! We BBQ'd, played outside, stayed up late, watched Daddy's fire work show, and did the sparklers for the first time.

As if we hadn't gone enough places and done enough things, we went to Funderland, too this summer. This is the BEST place for young ones, it's not too big and overwhelming, and Hannah is the perfect size to go on everything herself, except for the big Dragon roller coaster.

That was probably a fraction of the things we have done this summer, but if gives you all an idea of how busy we have been!! Another exciting thing that happened this summer was that I finished school!! Finally, hallelujah, amen! I know I'm not done forever... but I have finally graduated with a degree that I can use for an actual career! As many of you know, I've been working towards my nursing degree since graduating from High school, and with so much competition trying to get into nursing school there was just no way I was going to finish anytime soon and we were tired of our family being in a holding pattern. So, I decided to graduate in Medical Assisting and I finished my last class- an externship- at the end of July. (I plan to go back and get my RN degree once Hannah is in elementary school).

I did my externship through Sutter at a family practice in Auburn, and I LOVED the office so much!! I wished they could have just hired me there but unfortunately they didn't need anyone. So, I took my Sutter employment test and passed, passed my CMA test, and have applied for roughly 30 MA positions. I've had one interview, didn't get the job but got great feedback from the hiring manager, so that felt good. Since my externship I have kept in contact with one the MA's at the Auburn office and she actually e-mailed me today telling me she's leaving that office and a position should hopefully open up, she's already talked to the hiring manager about me coming back and will be talking with her Dr. about me replacing her!! Of course I have to apply and interview like everyone else, but I know they were all happy with me there externing so hopefully they will just want me back to work! Her last day is at the end of Septemeber so I'm sure they will hire someone by then, and let's just hope that person is me!

Wow- so I guess that concludes our summer!! This post is all over the place and probably doesn't flow well, but I've gotta get back in the groove somehow!! So, bare with me and I'll be posting more soon, I've gotta fill in the gaps I left in this post! :)

The Magic Kingdom

Our recent trip to the happiest place on earth can be summed up pretty well by the sampling of pictures below...



"Hey, LOOK!!! I see Disneyland!!!" Followed by... "But I want to go there NOW, I don't want to wait until tomorrow!" I totally agreed with my young child, but it seemed pointless to spend money on tickets when it was already 4 in the afternoon, so opposed to popular vote we waited and went to Disney first thing the next morning. I've got to take a moment to say just how awesome our young traveler is during car trips, I truly cannot express how happy we are with how content she is no matter how long we spend in the car. Maybe it's because her car seat is as plushy and comfy as a thrown? Or because she can watch any movie and as many times as she wants? Or she gets countless snacks and treats that she would typically have to earn by eating real food first? Whatever the reason, Hannah is the BEST passenger and we are so lucky she's so easy going.

The day of Disney, the little princess waited ever so patiently while the adults took their time getting ready and then proceeded to go to Denny's before the park, even though they had already opened their golden gates.

On our way to the shuttle bus that would take us to the park- I think she was more excited to ride on a Toy Story bus than anything else. We could've saved our money and just rode on that thing ALL day long! It was so cute, every Disney employee we passed called Hannah a princess and wished her a happy day at their kingdom, she could not have been more thrilled!

It just so happened as soon as we entered and made our first purchase (autograph book and matching princess pen), we ran into the line waiting to meet Mickey himself, so we just had to make that pit stop and shake hands with the one and only!

We met quite a few characters during the day and got many hugs and autographs including...

Pluto, Goofy, Fairy Godmother, and some princesses!

Since we've been to a couple fair-type places in our time and realized Hannah just loved rides I knew we would have a blast on each and every ride! What I didn't expect was that most Disney rides were inside, with LOUD noises, and LOTS of "scary, bad guys" that our wee-one was not so into! It was during our first ride, the Buzz Lightyear Ride, that I realized Han has only been on rides that were out in the open and did not have LOUD music or talking playing, which made her about wet her pants! So, we quickly ushered her off the ride, wiped her tears, and stuck to rides that were out in the open, fresh air, that lacked all those scary bad guys! Her favorite ride was the Dumbo ride- next to the shuttle bus, she could have gone on the Dumbo ride the entire day.

Besides not wanting to meet Buzz after the ride we had gone on, she LOVED meeting all the characters and ran to give them big hugs!

The absolute best thing we did while at Disney had to be meeting the princesses. After *patiently* waiting about an hour, once Hannah turned that corner and saw who she was about to rub elbows with the time in line was instantly worth it! Her face LIT up and nothing was going to wipe that smile off her face. She got to spend a few minutes with each princess, they talked quietly to only her, had her make wishes, told her how Cinderella looked just like her when she was a little girl, got lots of hugs and a twirl or two!

Once Hannah got to Belle and gave her a hug she happen to look to her right and see Cinderella- so her time with Belle was short, she kept trying to engage with Hannah, but all Han was saying was "Cinderella's over there!" hahaha We got our picture and Han was off to see Cinderella.

I absolutely LOVE this picture, Hannah is so enthralled with everything Cinderella was saying, it was such a magical time for her!

Next we went on a couple more rides and had some lunch.

Even though the Jungle Cruise ride was out in the open, I guess the animal noises and the tour guide talking on the loud speaker was still a little too loud for her precious ears! :)

I could not wait to get to Disneyland and spoil my little girl, I was going to buy her anything she asked for that day. The problem came when... she didn't ask for anything! Every souvenir stand we passed, I would pause and wait for her to ask for something, each food cart I asked she wanted a treat, and she not ONCE asked to get Minnie Mouse ears- because I didn't give her a chance, I asking if she wanted to go pick some out now? Or now? Is this a sign we give her too much, she doesn't even have to ask? Whatever the case, we bought her the ice cream, the autograph book, and went to the Mad Hatter store to buy her princess Minnie ears- that she picked out! Then, finally, the time came, she asked for "that pink stuff", as in cotton candy. Ok, lets go find you some, we walked up and down and of course each stand was "fresh out", when we finally got our hands on it and gave her a big piece to have melt in her mouth, she said "I don't really like it, it tastes hairy". Oh kids, how I love the things they say. So, she finally asks for something and it turns out to taste like hair to her, what can you do?

Towards the end of the day we went to Toon Town and checked out everyone's house, which she was totally into.

Then, found a spot to sit and watch the parade, which was due to start in about 30 minutes, just enough time for mom and dad to sneak off and ride Space mountain. So, we had our fun and raced back to my parents and Han to watch the parade, when Hannah reaches out to me, lays her head on my shoulder, and asks for her blankie... It had been such a long day and for a kiddo that is still used to her 2-3 hour nap every day, she was ready for a rest. Then over the loud speaker, they announced the parade won't be coming our way for another 15 minutes- we decided to call it a day. However, walking through Main Street to the parking lot, Han was still able to see all the characters that are in the parade, but poor girl got so excited and exclaimed "I need my signen book!!", she was ready to jump out beyond the crowd to get her hugs and autographs! Daddy and grandpa bought dinner so we could eat in the hotel room, which by the expression below, Hannah thought was really cool that she was able to eat mac n' cheese in bed while watching Caillou!

Unfortunately, our little girl slept funky in the hotel pull out couch and woke up screaming that she couldn't move her neck at 5 am the next morning- which was supposed to be the day we go to California Adventure. We quickly realized we better hurry outa there or we would have to wait out LA traffic and it would be a few more hours before we could make our drive home. So, we packed up and were on the road back home by 6:30 am. Once Han was snug in her car seat with her head fully supported, she was slightly comfortable and by late afternoon her neck was a little less stiff and did not hurt so bad. Since we missed an entire day of fun at the parks, I think we should start planning for our next trip to the Magic Kingdom!