Springtime catch-up

Disclaimer: Super long post!

Let's play catch-up, shall we? As always, we have had a super busy springtime. Between two full-time working parents, church and church activities, dance, birthday parties, and fitting in all the playing and fun that we can, there is always something going on with the Furr family. And that's just the way I like it! Our laptop has been broken for a while, and we haven't replaced it yet, so that's the main reason for my lack of blogging and photos, but I do have some phone pics and Aunt Katie snaps to share.

We didn't do much for spring break, other than some fun days spent at home and a trip to the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center on the coast. Sister enjoyed following in Mama's footsteps as a grocery store cashier.

 

She also got her very first haircut at four years old!

We've been cultivating that beautiful head of hair for four long years, ha ha. She was so proud of her trim.

Cliff and I both set fitness goals in 2012, and we're both well on the road to achieving them. He has lost 50 pounds and completed a 5K. I never thought I'd see the day for that!

I finally lost all of my baby weight (only took a year this time), and did a 5K of my own.

Nerd alert for just having my secretary take this photo in my office. It's casual Friday, obviously. Just wanted to compare  to show how much I had to overcome, ha!

I still really don't like running, but I was glad to complete a goal. Since the weather has gotten too hot for me to run on my lunch break at work (and still look like a decent human being afterwards), I have been doing Jillian Michaels DVDs in my office. She is brutal but good. I wore some pants from my honeymoon the other day. Holla!

Back to the kids. We had a fun Easter and did lots of egg hunting!

(I have better photos trapped on my camera.)

We've done lots of playing outside around the house. G is secure in his manhood enough to swing in his hand-me-down swing!

Lots of firsts for our big girl in the past couple of months:

First sleepover

She had a blast!

First field trip

 
 First end of the year school program

And...

She had her very first dance recital! I've been dreaming of this day since I had the sonogram that told me she was a girl! She did so good, and loved every minute of it. So fun!

Finally, the biggest thing going on around here has been a wrap-up of pre-school and daycare and the start to summer fun. I can't believe how much these two have grown and changed this school year.

We've been so blessed to have them here with us at Co-Lin, and they both have had wonderful teachers. I'm pretty sure G loves Miss Margaret more than me, and Amelia thinks Miss Melissa hung the moon. She has learned to write her name and all the letters of the alphabet and how they sound, can sound out and recognize some words, can recognize and write all of her numbers and count to over 100, is learning about science, and so much more. One more year of pre-school and then it's on to K5 for our girl. She just loves to learn and I am so glad. G did lots of learning at school too, but I think they baby him quite a bit, ha. He is finally walking now that he's home for the summer. Still not full-time, but we're getting there. A post on that will be forthcoming when the big day arrives!

Since school got out they've been enjoying time at home with a sitter and we've been getting out for some fun in the sun when mama and daddy get home.

 Bring on summer!

Graham's Nursery

I have become such a terrible blogger! I am so overdue on lots of things I want to post about for my own memories' sake, but before I do that, I'm going to post about some really old news- Graham's nursery. I had every intention of sharing these photos before I had Graham, but since he came two weeks early, mere hours after I completed his room, well... that just didn't happen. Then he was here and when I ever did get time to post, I just wanted to share my sweet new baby instead of room pics.

However, believe it or not, his little room has become somewhat of an internet sensation over the last year or so. I shared pics of the room on Project Nursery for fun, and what do you know, the thing started showing up all over Pinterest. Crazy! It was featured as Project of the Month on Project Nursery and was actually the most viewed nursery of 2012 on their site. Seriously, who would have thought? I got lots and lots of emails from people asking questions about the room after that, and I still get at least one email a week about it. It's been featured on a couple of other web sites that I'm aware of here and here. I decided after another site emailed me about featuring it that it might be good if I actually had photos of the room on my blog if and when people ever mosy over here, ha ha.

All that to say, yes, now I am finally sharing some breaking news here on my blog: year-old photos of my baby's room. Oops. 

 

I really had so much fun doing this room for my sweet G. I'm not really sure why it's gotten so much attention, but I'm guessing it has something to do with chevron being so popular and at the time there hadn't been a ton of nurseries featuring that pattern. I don't know. Obviously, I love it, but there are way better designed, more expensive, fancier and cooler nurseries than this out there. It's kind of funny that my little old room that we did on a pretty tight budget became so popular. If only all those "pinners" could see what a mess it is today, ha! It's not nearly as cute with toys strewn on the floor and with the bedding bunched up because we've had to lower the mattress for the little climber. But it's still sweet to me because it's where my baby sleeps, and we created it with love just for him!

Room sources:
Paint: Gray is Sparrow by Behr and blue is True Turquoise by Glidden. The white strip is crown molding and the ceiling is painted. 
Bedding: Custom made by a local seamstress. Fabric by Premier Prints.
Curtains: Handmade by me. This was my first time to sew curtains, so they are nowhere near perfect!
Crib: Re-used from Amelia- bought from Target in 2008
Chair: Re-used from Amelia- bought from Babies 'R Us in 2008
Cube shelf: Ikea Expedit
Light Fixture: Ikea Fillista
Lamps: Target
Rug: Ebay. This is what I have gotten the most questions about! Apparently it is discontinued. Sorry, y'all!
Dresser: Craigslist- I refinished and painted it.
Seuss print: Created and gifted to me by my friend Lindey. Her etsy shop is WallFrostingDesign.
Wild things print: Little Light Prints
Sleepy Print: Sycamore Street Press 
Window seat/toy chest- built by my dad; I made the pillows and had the cushion made by the seamstress who made the bedding. 

Graham's wild rumpus first birthday party

We had so much fun celebrating our year with Graham with a "Where the Wild Things Are" themed party! It has always been one of my favorite children's books and I decided while I was still pregnant with Graham that we would do a party based on the book for his first birthday.

I have tried to learn from my mistakes with Amelia and have enjoyed this year with Graham as a bit of a do-over in parenting, ha. One thing I learned is to not stress too much over the birthday party that you actually miss out on celebrating your child's birthday. I didn't go nearly as over-the-top with G's party as I may or may not have done for Amelia, but I thought it turned out cute, and we had a great time celebrating our sweet boy with our family and friends. I'll let the photos speak for themselves! As always, fabulous photography by Aunt Katie. Party details and sources at the end.

He had plenty of help blowing out his candle. 

 

G and his sweet friends from church (and their mamas!)

Still going strong afte the party

Sister, however, couldn't hang. 

We had such a good time celebrating with our family and G's little friends. That baby LOVED his cake! He cried when I took it away, but got over it before we could even get a photo of his meltdown when he realized he still had plenty to lick on his fingers. :) Unlike his sister, who was pretty dainty and ladylike with her smash cake, this boy had to leave his party guests to go take a bath before he could re-join the fun! And what was I thinking with that black icing? Oh well, the t-shirt may be stained, and the bib I sewed may not look the same, but the memories are so worth it!

Sources:
Invite

I had the cake made locally , but I got the idea here. 

I made the Max costume myself and found the tutorial here.

Idea for cut-outs came from here. I had an art student at Co-Lin make them for me. I loved how they turned out!

Cookie favor tags from here. 

Wild things t-shirt from here.