Emery's Big Girl Room Reveal!

First of all, I am SO excited to finally have our blog somewhat up-to-date.  We have been so busy doing things on the house and I'm pumped to be able to share them!  We wanted to get Emery's bedroom and bathroom completely done before tackling the room across the hall (what will be the nursery).  Backing up a little bit, do you remember Emery's hot pink room from when we moved in?  Thankfully she loved pink at the time and loved her room even though there was nothing on the walls and pretty much junk everywhere. Yikes!!


Once we switched her into a big girl bed, and painted her room a light pink color (Sherwin Williams White Dogwood) I couldn't wait to get to decorating and changing out everything.  We bought her the Hemnes Daybed from Ikea and a couple frames to mix and match in a gallery wall above it.  The rest of the furniture is all handed down from my family (the gossip bench and chest of drawers) and I love having something sentimental in her room that still is girly.

When I first ordered the fabric for her curtains I didn't know if the pink was going to be the right color so I also ordered a swatch of the orange.  Thankfully pink worked perfectly so the orange could be used for a pillow! (Looks a little misshapen in the picture but I promise it's good ha)

We mix matched Ikea Frames (cheap and they match bed perfectly) and filled them up with homemade prints I copied from Pinterest and pictures of Emery with the princesses from Disney.  To make the big E I used my silhouette and cut out an E of pink glitter paper.  I also love that Emery wanted my pointe shoes in her room (she saw them one day when we were cleaning out a storage bin)… so special and one day I hope she'll be a dancer herself!


My favorite part of the room is by far the custom roman shades that my Mom and I made!  I love the fabric --Joel Dewberry Bungalow Hive Pink-- and because we lined them with black out lining her room now gets SO dark.  (We did decide to leave our blinds still there just since some light can come through the sides of the shade.)  We hung the roman shades about 4 inches higher than the windows to make the ceiling seem higher.  If interested, we followed this tutorial to make them and the directions were pretty dead on!

I also used some white lanterns hung with some home made grey poms in the corner of the windows.  We pretend that's where the butterflies live and that's why they are flying up there :)

What butterflies you ask? Here is a picture showing a little of the butterfly wall we have on the dresser side. Just cut those out of different card stocks with the silhouette and pinned into the wall.

She's so proud of her new room and can't wait to show her friends when they come over.  Sweet girl deserves it!

Officially Diaper Free!

That's right our house is officially DIAPER FREE-- WOO HOO!  Emery had basically been going #2 on the potty since November and mid December made the change to going #1 and #2.  Seeing her big cousins over Christmas did it though with officially not wanting to go in her diaper ever again.  She wanted those big girl princess underwear so bad!  After getting a run down on the book PottyWise from Tara over New Years, we headed home to start our 3 days of official Potty Training!

Off to Target Em and Daddy went to pick out Big Girl undies-- Ariel ones of course:

The book says to clear your schedule for 3 days and focus on nothing else but potty training so that's what we did!  We didn't end up setting a timer as reminders, as Emery had been staying dry the entire week before and letting us know when she had to go potty… yes she basically potty trained herself!  She did get a reward of 1 mini m&m when she went and man did she get excited about that!

Yummy pancake breakfast to celebrate her "big girl day":

The book also recommends to wear dresses for girls as it's so much easier to lift up and go!  Since it was still chilly in our house we rocked the rainbow leg warmers (thanks Sara!) most days:

Before we knew it, our 3 days were over and she had only had 1 accident the entire time! We then made our 30 block sticker chart (her "clean and dry" chart), where Emery got a sticker every time she woke up with a clean diaper from nap time and bedtime.  Here she is with her full chart of stickers that we finished on Sunday!

Once she filled up her sticker chart we told her she could pick out one special prize from Target of anything she wanted!  She immediately went straight to the Ariel gear and picked out a movie!

So proud of our big girl and how easy she made this potty training process on us!  She is beyond excited to get to keep her underwear on all the time now and be all done with diapers.  She is seriously growing up too fast on us!!

Atlanta Visit!

We had the best time tagging along with Kyle on a business trip to Atlanta this past week!  This was by far our easiest trip yet as Emery required us to bring only 3 diapers and no pack n play (she slept on the pull out sofa bed in the room)-- woo hoo easy peasy!  We drove into town on a Tuesday night and met Jen, Max and Lacey for dinner at La Pa!  So great catching up with the girls-- miss them!

Em and Max:

Jen and I are both pregnant, due only a month apart (I know, I know I look huge!).  We're expecting a boy and Jen and David are expecting a little girl!

Wednesday morning, we woke up and headed to Jeneane's house!  We still had yet to meet baby Ethan so we had the best time catching up with Jeneane and playing with Ethan when he was awake!

Look at the adorable Tinkerbell doll that Jeneane made for Emery!  So talented!

We headed back to the hotel for nap time, picked up Kyle from work and headed to our old stomping grounds in Marietta to go to Chris and Kathleen's house for dinner (and drove by our old house real quick just to see if anything had changed)!  Someone was excited to go see her friends!

We had the best time catching up with them and Taylor, Courtney and Gracyn for the night.  All the kids got along great together and it's always so easy to hang out with their families.  Really wish we could transport them to Charlotte-- as we miss them a lot!!

The girls bonding over their love for coloring and princesses!

Em, Myer and Gracyn… such cuties!

Kathleen is due in March so we are almost exactly 2 months apart!  So exciting!

Belly pics!

Myer-- what a stud ;)

Kiddos playing:

Thursday morning, we dropped Kyle off at work and headed back up to Marietta to go to our old music/gymnastics class!  Unbelievably the teacher remembered us and we had fun catching up with old friends there.  Kathleen and Myer came with us and we had a blast singing to the songs and then watching them run around during open play!

(I'll post a video later of the fun we had)

Such a great visit.  Loved visiting our best friends in Georgia and catching up just like old times!

Quick Raleigh trip!

We headed to Raleigh one of the first weekends in January to celebrate Bayly's 1st Birthday and Brenda's Birthday.  We had a great time with family as always and the weekend flew by!

Emery is obsessed with her little girl cousins!

Uncle Kyle with Bayly:

Saturday night after dinner, Mom and I braved following a Pinterest tutorial for Roman Shades for Emery's room.  I had ordered the fabric months ago but didn't want to tackle this project without my mom as she is a MUCH better seamstress than I am!  Yes we stayed up way too late and had to work more hours together Sunday morning but we are both so happy with the outcome.  Will be showing pictures of Emery's big girl room soon!

Thank you again so much, Mom, for helping me make these (I was the measurer and pinner while Mom did the actual sewing)!  I think of her anytime I see them in Em's room!  Dad and Kyle helped with little parts of our project as well and did a great job keeping Emery entertained at the park so I could concentrate on sewing!  Thanks again guys!

Sunday afternoon we had a quick playdate with Sara, Joe and the boys before heading back to Charlotte.  Our time always goes by way too quickly in Raleigh but still had so much fun none the less!

A Few More Christmas Traditions!

All these pictures are bad quality from my phone but I love all the special things we got to do this year around Christmas!

Floor Nativity Puzzle:

Hot Chocolate during Movie Night (The Polar Express):

Driving around the neighborhood to see lights:

Mailing out Christmas Cards to friends and family (even if they did arrive AFTER Christmas this year!):

Decorating Christmas tree and realizing we only had enough lights for HALF of it haha:

Once we stole lights from our outside bushes and decorated with all of our ornaments:

Decorating the inside of our front door like a snowman:

Taking naps near the tree:

And a decorated home that was nice and cozy all Christmas long! (Yes, I had grand plans for the canvas above the fireplace which never got painted ha)

And lastly Emery was the queen of Christmas songs this year.  Seriously knew everyone by heart and entertained us to no end.  Love our little singer girl!

Christmas Cookie Recipe!

Over Christmas we made two batches of these delicious cookies so I wanted to share some of our pictures during the process and the recipe!  They are so much thicker than any other sugar cookie I've made before but still so soft and just plain good!

Thick, Soft Sugar Cookies
Recipe:

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

3 tsp. vanilla

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking soda

5 1/2 cups flour

Directions:

In mixer, cream butter and sugar, and then add eggs and vanilla. Add sour cream. Combine salt, soda, and flour, and add to mixture. Roll out on floured surface to about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick. Use a spatula to carefully slide under each cookie and place onto greased (with Pam) parchment-lined cookie sheets. Bake at 375 for 7-8 minutes.

THEY WILL NOT LOOK DONE! But don't give in to your temptation to cook "just a little bit longer" or you will get crunchy cookies instead of soft, pillow-like cookies. They are still very pale and have no browning anywhere. If you have a golden brown color along the edges then you have baked them too long. Wait about 5 minutes and then transfer carefully to a cooling rack. If you wait longer they will get soggy on the bottom and sometimes get stuck to the parchment paper. Once they are cooled they are ready for frosting.

Buttercream Frosting

Recipe:

1/2 cup butter, softened

4 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4-1/3 cup milk

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, cream butter. Beat in sugar and vanilla until crumbly. Gradually add milk until frosting reaches desired consistency. Add desired food coloring. This recipe makes about 30 extra large cookies (like I have here) or up to 4 dozen smaller cookies.

We delivered to friends & neighbors a couple days before Christmas, fun fun!