Old Chair

We found this rocker on Craigslist a while ago for a pretty good deal. The fabric doesn't look so bad in the picture but it was really really old and dirty in real life so we knew we would have to reupholster it. We sat on it and thought it was pretty comfy except for one spot near the back that we thought "just needed more padding". No Problem! We liked how it rocked like a rocking chair but the base is like a glider so it's easier on our floors. Little did we know this is what we would find....

This is what we found when we started to take the chair apart to reupholster it. The springs are supposed to be attached to the sides with string, almost all of the strings were broken so the springs were going crazy! We watched some videos on the web about re tying, ordered some new string and then got to work. It was definitely a learning process and the whole chair ended up taking longer then we ever planned on but it all worked out OK in the end.

It was my job to tie the springs and Dusty was in charge of the staple gun since that thing is powerful! We barely had enough string, actually we probably could have used more but at least every spring is tied at least 4 times. Better then before!

 Here is the chair all finished, hopefully it lasts a while!

8/52

Our weekend was filled with Lego's at the Library and yummy food. I started off helping out on Friday by cutting up tons and tons of paper and paper clipping it all together in packs for visitors to mark which Lego creations were there favorites ( Oh, the life of a volunteer :) at least I got to sit down!). If you ever need a paperclip go your local library...they have millions and I used way to many this weekend. 

The contest was open to kids and adults and there were some pretty great submissions. We had a few frazzled parents that came in to drop off their kids project and you could tell it fell apart in the car or something and they would always tell us,  "Don't worry, it's ok, I have a picture on my phone of how it's supposed to look" and then they would spend a while in the conference room getting the Lego's just right. I think in the end we had almost 400 submissions. We were a little short handed for the big Lego contest/finale on Saturday so I roped Dusty in, he was a sport, especially since we had to be there by 8:30am which  is still early for us since technically we are still baby-less, looking back that could have been our last chance to sleep in for many years. The ladies at the library loved meeting Dusty!

 After we were done at the Library we went to Chuy's. It was my first time there and it was pretty good, the chips and salsa were awesome and we didn't bring any food home so I guess that means we liked it. We both got the "burrito as big as your face", seriously that is what it is called on the menu. And Hello it's February people! Can you tell the weather was awesome here yesterday in Nashville? It was, I love living here!

A while ago a friend gave me a friendship bread starter and yesterday was day 10 which is the day you are supposed to bake it. Dusty was really concerned since he had seen me add milk to the bag about 5 days ago and then leave it out on the counter, which is what you do, you leave the whole thing out on the counter for 10 days. He was worried about the safety of the dough and started calling it "Fermented Friendship Bread". I was determined to make it despite his uneasiness, I started getting nervous though when I realized I needed Vanilla pudding mix and all I had was Butterscotch, that's what I get for making things on Sunday, but it still turned out great! Dusty even tried it and said it was yummy.

A Little Nursery

Kasey came to visit and helped make this flower mobile

A quilt holder to hold all of her handmade blankets

A piece of a quilt that was passed down to me when I was a little girl

The softest zebra quilt, made with love from Grandma

Temple watercolor from Great Grandpa

A hand painted flower from one of my Young Women.

Now we are just waiting for someone to come live in this room :) Our little girl is so lucky to have so many handmade touches from her friends and family.

Getting close.

Today I bought milk that expires on my due date. Weird! We're getting close!

7/52

We've been busy this week wrapping up our bookcases, they are still a work in progress and you can see we still have a lot of cords to hide! Dusty used some pegboard to make a bunch of little holes so that the shelves will be adjustable. Now all we have left to do is paint!

A little Valentines din din, heart shaped eggs Benedict. The last few years we've just done dinner at home for Valentines day and then we go out another night during the week. We went and saw the movie "Warm Bodies" about Zombies. It was hilarious! We loved it and it wasn't very zombie-ish, it was more like a zombie love story. Afterwards we went to the mall to look around for fun and found this cute heart frame, I took a picture cause it looked like a good DIY ....dusty, are you reading this? :)

Dusty was sweet and planned a special dinner for Valentines/Anniversary/last nice dinner before baby comes. It was so yummy, we had some bacon wrapped scallops, steak, salmon and some yummy sides. One thing about the south is they really know how to do their side dishes....we should have had dessert first cause by the time we finished all our food we were too full for dessert, bummer. 

Our waiter was really funny, he came by and said "Wow! That looks really good! Can I have a bite?" 

Dusty said "Sure!". The waiter said "Oh, nobody has ever said yes before." And then we all laughed. 

I guess the whole nesting thing is real because the other day I just HAD to have new sofa pillows (for a picture of the old pillows go here, I made those ones along time ago while I watched the 2008 summer Olympics. Good times but they started falling apart a little bit ago). I already had some fabric (sheets from Ikea's discount bin, amazing deals, yards and yards for 10 bucks!) and the inserts so I didn't have to leave the house which is a major plus these days, especially since the nearest Jo-Ann's is a million gazillion miles away. I used this really great tutorial for the yellow one and then just sort of winged the grey one. Our sofa is happier now.

Young Women's has been fun lately between activities, volleyball and birthdays we've had a lot of great time together. Helped the girls heart attack one of our laurels bedroom door for her birthday. By helping I mean I sat on the stairs and handed them rolled pieces of tape...sometimes being a leader is the best! And in case you were wondering the pink flamingo was already there when we got there.

A Rotating Calendar

A couple of years ago my friend started this thing called a rotating calendar. I had never heard of a rotating calendar before but the basic idea is that you have a card for each day of the year and then every day you write down what you did and move that card to the back of the stack. You keep rotating through the cards each year. So, by the the time I fill up each card I will have a list of what I did each day from 2012-2024, or however many lines the note card has. I thought this was a pretty neat idea, so for one of my news years resolutions this year I decided I would give it a try, it has been fun to see what I end up writing down for each day.

It was pretty easy and cheap to make. I just had to buy 352 note cards and then I made some dividers for each month out of scrapbook paper. I had a hard time finding a box to fit the note cards so I hot glued some cardboard together and covered it in craft paper. 

One time the friend that first introduced me to this idea texted me, "Hey! This day last year we went to the book signing at West Elm". It was fun to remember that evening, and I definitely wouldn't have remembered it if she hadn't wrote it down for us :) I'm looking forward to next year and seeing what I was doing at the same time this year. 

Baby Bump

San Diego

San Diego is our used, new to us, house plant. A couple of months ago our neighbor gave us this amazingly large plant because it was getting too big for her (she kept it outside in the summer and inside in the winter and she was tired of moving it around). I was hesitant to accept the plant from her because I tend to kill houseplants. I tried to to tell her that I kill house plants and she said "Oh, this plant is 10 years old, you can't kill it!". Well, when we first got the plant it had about 6 leaves....now we are down to 3, well really 2 1/2 because one is half way brown. There is a one new leaf that has grown since we've had it in our house and it made us really happy! I really hope it doesn't die completely because I don't know how I would tell our neighbor that I killed her un-killable plant. Dusty named the plant San Diego because it's one of his favorite places and the plant looks like it came from California. 

Does anyone have any tips on how to keep houseplants alive? All we've tried is water so far. 

A Dusty Photo

6/52

Tried making a banana, peanut butter, and egg pancake/yummy quiche

Painting shelves for bookcases/prepping walls for bookcases

Tie dye with the young women!

Nice weather for a walk/ valentines day nails

Temple Bags

For New Beginnings this year we focused on the new mutual theme which is "Stand ye in holy places and be not moved". We gave each girl a gift bag with the Temple and her name on it and filled it with temple goodies for the new year. Temple goodies included: framed picture of the temple that the girls decorated for an activity one night and the mutual theme printed out and lamented with a magnet on the back for their locker (the girls made these too) cute and free theme logos found on Pinterest of course! Our YW president is amazing and makes a calendar with all upcoming events for the year which she binds! The girls all made pages about themselves that we compiled into a yearbook for them to keep, they didn't see the finished product till that evening so we had fun looking through them together.  Fun times!

A Dusty Photo

Weekend Update 4/52