The Dresser Project

This is a new personal best for me. I don't think I have EVER taken pictures of something, downloaded said pictures and posted it on my blog...on the same day!  


A while back I started looking for a new dresser for Charlie.  Once this baby decided to make her appearance, Charlie will loose his dresser since it's part of the crib set.  I thought I had one all picked out at a local furniture store.  I went in to buy it and got a better look at the size and quality and changed my mind.  I could just see Charlie destroying that in a matter of months.  So I did a quick look online at higher end stores and decided I wasn't ready, not to mention Derek, to part with that much money.  Furniture is expensive.  Ikea was my next option I figured I could take Charlie and drive there and back while Leah was at school.. I had it all planned out.  While I waited for said day, I started browsing Craigslist to see if there was something there that might work.  I had several options, not all of them fantastic to look at but nothing a little paint couldn't fix.  Some of them were still a little pricey.  Then I found what I thought was the perfect set.  It was more pieces than I needed but super cheap.  I was getting the run around by the seller.  I thought I had lost these great finds.  Luckily the person who was going to buy them decided they were too crappy for him and she called me back.  I was in the middle of taking my frustrations out on my car by cleaning it when I got the call.  So happy!  I had a friend follow me to the house because
1.  I couldn't lift the pieces myself and
2.  There was no way all four pieces would fit in my car.
When I brought them home and Derek helped unload them, he was not pleased with my finds.  Really they looked pretty crappy and even the steal I got them for seemed like too much money to him.  His doubts gave me doubts and I was beginning to regret my hastiness.  Oh, well, what's done was done and I just had to make the best of it.

 I really only needed the tall dresser and one night stand.  But they seller sold them as a set and I figured we could use the others eventually or resell them.


On Monday Charlie and I hit Home Depot to get our refinishing supplies.  We both wanted blue, he light and me dark.  I won, I mean I am the designer out of the two of us.  I am really happy with the color we picked. I almost went with another blue, but this one is the perfect shade.  Later that day we roughed up the varnish with a sander to get it ready for our primer coat. Charlie was a fantastic helper.  He even grabbed a brush and helped me paint the primer on both pieces.  I couldn't believe what a good job he did. I had more paint on me than he did.

It only took 2 coats of blue paint to get them all covered and looking great.  I spray painted the original knobs. I wanted to buy new pulls but those things are pricey!  Derek was already freaking out about the cost of this project and a can of spray paint would have to do the trick.

 I am very happy with the result.  I can't wait to get it up in his room and start using it.  The only change I may make in the future is to add some gliding rails to the drawers so they pull out a little easier, but I don't have the tools and I think THAT can wait until I'm not 8 months pregnant.

Amazing the difference between the original and my refinish.  I can hardly believe they were part of the same set.  My final picture is missing pulls because I had to add another coat of paint of them and I wasn't patient enough to wait for the paint to dry before taking the final pictures.  That's what I get for spray painting in the dark.

Disney World

I started this post a while ago and then got distracted and never finished it.  So here is to finally finishing one of the things I started.  

We knew we were moving to Georgia quite a while ago.  Derek and I decided back then that the kids were old enough to take them to Disney World and we should do it while we are in GA since we will be so close and who knows when that might happen again.  So I began casually planning, then I got pregnant and the planning came to a drastic halt.  We knew when we could go, but all the details still needed to be planned.  I ended up calling a travel agent.  They are super awesome by the way, I will forever use them again for big trips.  We got everything booked up and organized and all that was left was to go.  

I was really hoping by the end of September when the trip was planned it would have cooled off enough to stand being outside.  It had cooled off quite a bit, but not enough to make it super comfortable.  Florida is HOT and HUMID.  I don't know how people can stand living there.  I don't know how anyone can manage Disney during the busy summer months.  

It was still amazing to be there.  We had so much fun.  4 fun filled days at the parks.  Though our theme seemed to be "there is no crying at Disney World".  The kids would have minor and some major breakdowns every day.  I attribute most of it to the heat and some of it to not taking there cues and moving more slowly through the park and letting them set the pace.  It's hard to go slowly, there is so much to see and you want to move them through so they can see everything.   I really believe it is impossible to see everything.  That place is massive.  Over 40 square miles of fun.  

We did a park a day, starting with the Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Magic Kingdom and finally Hollywood Studios.  The kids liked Animal Kingdom best and I wish we had had time to go back and spend another half a day exploring it again.  Hollywood Studio's was our least favorite, only because it was a bunch of shows and the kids just didn't care to sit and watch shows.  They wanted to play.  Epcot definitely had the best food.  I think we went back there twice just to eat. 

Okay so now I'll give a brief narrative of the pictures I took, I'm terrible with pictures.  I always want to be better, but it just doesn't seem to happen.

This is the view from our resort.  Leah and I took a stroll on our first night there.  We were trying to see how far away the big swimming pool was.

Our hotel room.  I know I should have gotten a picture before we moved everything in and trashed it but I didn't.  We stayed in a pirate themed room at the Caribbean Beach Resort.  It was fun.

The first day we took the shuttle bus to Animal Kingdom.  This is the kids waiting for the bus to come.  We decided it wasn't worth it after this and drove to the parks the rest of the time.

Animal Kingdom.  Our first encounter with a Disney Character.  Charlie was too scared to have his picture taken with her.

At the bone yard.  This was the kids favorite place out of all of Disney World.  It was a huge playground.  Unfortunately we found it right before lunch so they didn't get to play as much as they liked and we pushed them through it rather quickly.  I regret doing that and wish we could have come back and spent more time.  It was hot that day and there was no place for adults to sit.  Being 20 weeks pregnant and just over morning sickness did not help anything.  Leah still talks about this place and wishes she could have played there longer.

This was a typical sight with Charlie.  Everything was too noisy for him.  He constantly had his fingers in his ears.

Waiting in line to see a character is pure torture.  At least waiting in line for the rides they have things to look at and see.  Here you just wait and then you have to wait while the character takes their break.  It's maddening.  But the kids were so excited to see Mickey I guess it's worth it in the long run.

Leah was waiting in line to see Minny Mouse while Charlie and I took off for Goofy.  We joined Derek and Leah after our visit with the Goof.

Minny Mouse.  Leah is in love with her now.

The bus ride home from Animal Kingdom.  Charlie passed out about 3 minutes after getting on the bus.  Poor kid.

Epcot Center.  Not as many rides for the kids to go on but it was fun.  This place is more educational and science oriented.

Chillin' with the fish.  They had a huge aquarium in one of the buildings.  We literally had to pull the kids away to go check out some other stuff.  Epcot also had one of the best gift shops I had seen at Disney.

Our first Princess encounter.  Snow White was so nice and she even talked in the high pitched Primary voice as Derek calls it.  I really felt for these poor princesses in all their clothes.  It was HOT.

Alice in Wonderland.  We missed getting a picture with Belle by minutes.  Character breaks suck.

Derek and I decided we were going to have dinner where we wanted too and just hope the kids would eat.  We ate at a wonderful Chinese restaurant, Nine Dragons at Epcot.  The kids surprised us both.  I had to take pictures to document it was real.  That's Leah eating a spring roll.

And Charlie eating an egg roll.  Amazing really, these guys are so picky.

Charlie with his spring roll.  I think he liked it better than the egg roll.

Leah and her egg roll.

Arg, it's a pirate.  He needed the gear since we were staying in the room.

Main street at the Magic Kingdom.  We didn't take the time to visit all the shops.  We would never have made it through the park if we had.

Leah and I stood in line for an hour, yes that's what I said to see Rapunzel.  We didn't get to see any of the other princess that day so I'm glad we at least got to see her.  Charlie and Derek went off to ride some other rides instead of waiting for us.  We met back up at Dumbo and why Dumbo is so popular I don't know, it was a lame ride.

On the Carousel.

While we were walking from one side of the park to the other we ended up in the middle of the afternoon parade.  We stopped and watched and this is were we finally got to see all the princesses and princes.  Most of the big characters were here.

Charlie and Buzz.  I think this ride was Charlie's favorite.  We went on it about 3 or 4 times.

We went back to Epcot to catch the fireworks show.  The day we were at Magic Kingdom they were having their big Halloween trick or treating party and we didn't pay to stay to that.  Charlie and Derek went off to ride some racing ride and Leah and I played and cooled off in the fountain while we waited for the fireworks to begin.  They were really cool.  It was the only night we stayed out late enough to see them.

Our last day we spent at Hollywood Studios.  We didn't get to ride on Toy Story Mania, the wait for it was over and hour and none of us wanted to do that.  There was plenty to see but we planned on staying only half of the day and then going back to the resort so Leah and Charlie could go swimming.

Our only family picture from the trip.

After an afternoon of swimming we took the kids to Downtown Disney for dinner and shopping.  I had seen in a brochure they had a Lego store and we had to check that out.  It was awesome!  That dragon is made entirely of Legos.

Lego Buzz

Lego Woody

Lego sea monster out in the lake.

All in all I think our trip was a success.  The kids cried a lot, I was tired and hot most of the time.  But it was fun to do something out of the norm for us as a family.  I would love to go back and do it again. I think it would be even better the second time around.  Now that I know what to expect and how the kids react to amusement park rides.  Who knows where we will be next, maybe we will be close enough to take a trip again in the coming years.

Charlie's 4th Birthday

    Charlie has had a thing for Spider-man for quite some time.  He watches the movies and cartoons over and over and over....  This year I asked him what kind of a birthday he wanted and I wasn't surprised at all when he yelled Spider-man!  I sat down at the computer a few weeks ago looking for inspiration for a spider-man cake.  I wanted it to be smaller than I've made in the past.  We have always had way too much cake left over and I spend more than a day baking all the stupid layers only to throw most of it away.  What I saw online helped me formulate a design for Charlie's cake.  I drew it quickly and stuck it to the fridge.  I had some technical issues in the construction.  I'm not very good with fondant yet and the picture of the building in my head was much cooler than what can to be.  I wasn't sure if I liked it until I showed it to Charlie.  He thought it was amazing!  So I guess I pleased my target audience and that's all that really  matters.  One of these days or years, I want to take a cake decorating class and really learn how to do this properly.

THE CAKE

 The Party

     It's hard being in a new place when birthdays come around.  The kids are used to having a big party with all their friends.  New places mean not as many new friends.  We were able to get a nice little group together at a nearby park to play, eat cake and open presents.  

 He was so happy it was finally his birthday!  I think he had a lot of fun playing with all his friends.

 Lighting the candles on the cake proved to be tricky.  It was really windy and we were in it's direct path.  After about 10 failed attempts at keeping the candles lit, I handed the matches over the the boy scout, aka Dad.  The wind died down just enough to get them lit and for Charlie to blow them out.  He was being a ham and taking his time with the blowing out part.  Luckily he beat the wind to it and got all 4 of his candles extinguished.

 Yummy.

 Presents!  Charlie loved everything he got.  He and Leah have been playing non-stop with them since we came home from the park yesterday.

 For the first time ever, Leah was able to make it all the way across the monkey bars by herself.  

Though she did fall on her rear a few times before she managed the task.