"Dresser" on a Budget

For awhile now, I've been looking for a reasonably priced dresser for AnnaBeth's room but haven't been able to find one that I'd be happy with. I've found super cheap ones but they're small and any that are of decent size are at least $100. A few weeks ago, I found these book cases at Walmart for $12.88. I got two so I can use one for her books and take the smaller one and put it back in the nursery.

For that price it isn't particularly horrible but it's not the greatest either. The cardboard backing for one, wasn't cut properly and didn't fit as well as it should...it's crooked. But, not the end of the world. I decided that I wanted to use some sort of basket to hold her clothes and I found a 3 pack of these at Ikea for $15 and got two packs.

I wanted the purple ones but they didn't have them in stock so I had the idea of getting some fabric and would figure out a way to attach the fabric. At Walmart, I found little packs of fabric remnants (I got 2 because one of the patterns I wanted only had one piece in the set) and also got ball point straight pins. Some sort of stitching would work better but since I don't know how to do that, this was my solution.

The pins hold the fabric on the cubes well enough for what I need and look really cute!!

The bottom cubes...one for tops and one for bottoms.

The top cubes....one for jammies and one for sweaters (obviously in the summer, jammies won't take up nearly as much space as in the winter and instead of sweaters, I can use the other one for swim stuff).

The bin on the left has her headbands and socks. The middle container has all of her barrettes. The bin on the right has all of her training underwear (which we have yet to get started with but they will be easily accessible when we do start potty training).

 Jammies on the left and sweaters on the right

 I discovered tonight while putting the clothes in the cubes that AnnaBeth is terribly short on winter shirts. She's set for pants, jammies, sweaters and socks but only has a few shirts. Good thing our winter doesn't start for another few months...gives me time to clearance shop!

We still have to get it in her closet but I'm happy that I've got it finished and that I'm happy with it. We still have two cubes left that I will use to store stuffed animals and who knows what else.

Llama Llama Red Pajama

My friend Crystal gave AnnaBeth the book Llama Llama Red Pajama and we recently started reading it every night before bed. AnnaBeth just LOVES it and she can't go to bed without reading it. Last night I tried leaving off some words at the ends of some of the sentences to see if she could complete them. And to my surprise, she could! So tonight, I tried it on most of the pages and she did really well. After we read it, I grabbed the camera and we read it again, this time with me recording :) I am just amazed that she can do this!

Planting Flowers

Last week I had the idea of planting flowers in an empty egg carton so AnnaBeth and I picked up some planting soil and some flower seeds. This morning it was overcast and not too terribly hot so we got to planting! It was also a bit of a learning experience for me as I only knew what sunflower seeds looked like. I had never seen the other before. And hopefully they'll grow. We still have plenty of seeds to try again if they don't.

 All set up and ready to get started

 Our four choices of flowers

 Turtle watering can

 Eager to get her hands dirty

 Carefully adding soil to each little section

 

 Time for the seeds!

 The seeds are all snuggled in the soil and ready to watered

 On the trampoline so they can get full sun all day and hopefully be fairly protected if a monsoon hits before I get home to bring them inside

 Giving her boof a hug...she sure loves him!

 Happy girl!!

 Love this face and pose that I just happened to capture!

 Our beautiful girl with oatmeal on her face :)

Painting

About a week and a half ago, I was at Staples and they had a set of 18 Crayola paints with a brush on sale for $4 so I snatched it up. That night I asked AnnaBeth if she wanted to try painting using a paint brush. She was SO excited to try it! I started out letting her dip the brush in the color herself but she ended up vigorously dipping the brush in so I took over and had her tell me what color she wanted to use and then I dipped the brush for her. She really enjoyed painting with a brush and did a fantastic job!

 

 

Making Muffins

AnnaBeth is quite my little helper and tonight she helped me make the box of blueberry muffins we had in the cupboard. Before we started, I got everything ready so all she had to do was dump the stuff in the bowl and she did SO well at completing each task! Then once they were in the oven, she ran around the house yelling "gotta cook the muffins!!!!"

 Pouring in the muffin mix

 Then the applesauce (I substituted it in place of the oil)

 Then the eggs

 Then the milk

 Stirring it all together

 Time to add the blueberries

 Gently stirring them in

 All ready to pour into the cups

 Marveling at her work :)

 Watching them bake

Excited that they will be done soon!

32 Weeks

Ah, I am down to just 8 weeks until my due date!! It seems so long and so short at the same time. I am so, so very ready to meet my little Mason but at the same time, I'm not ready as I'm not quite ready to give up my alone time with AnnaBeth. I'm not really worried about figuring out how to manage two kids or anything like that, I know that God will daily provide me with what I need to accomplish those things. And I know that AnnaBeth will adjust well to having a little brother. I will just miss having just her but I know that will go away once Mason is here just like my missing it being just Kent and I went away once AnnaBeth was here.

I feel as though my belly just keeps growing and growing and growing. In the last 2 weeks I have put on 6lbs. Yes, 6!! I'm hoping that trend doesn't continue over the next 8 weeks. I'm up to 23lbs so far...still 15lbs away from what I put on total with AnnaBeth. According to the info out there on the interwebs, I should expect to gain about a pound a week from here on out with 1/2 of it going to Mason. We have an ultrasound scheduled for this Wednesday the 17th so I will get pictures posted once we get home. I'm anxious to see him again and find out approximately how big he is right now.

AnnaBeth was saying hi to Mason in this picture here. Yesterday she started telling us that Mason has to come out and then after she says that, she grabs my belly as if it were a heavy ball and tries to pull it toward her. For her, I guess that's how he will come out, if someone pulls on my tummy. She says he's still growing in there but then turns right around and adamantly says he needs to come out. It's really cute!!

Wiggle Worm Adventures

On Friday I took AnnaBeth to the activity center at McQueen Park (this is the one we walk to via the canal that's at the end of our street). Every Friday morning they have a class called Wiggle Worm Adventures that's designed for children under 5. Since we are Gilbert residents it only costs $1.50 for her to play for 2 hours. They have the class in the gym (PERFECT during the hot summer!) and have tons of stuff for the kids to do like a basketball net, soccer net, a thing with holes for footballs, hula hoop type rings, bouncy balls, riding toys and a whole bunch of other stuff. AnnaBeth had a BLAST!! It was the best $1.50 I have ever spent! AnnaBeth spent most of her time playing basketball and was VERY good at sharing any of the balls with other kids, especially the younger ones. I was so proud of her! During her playing, a girl about her age threw a plastic cone at her and hit her in the arm. Her parents came over right away and told her not to throw things (and explained that their daughter was in a throwing phase right now and felt SO bad that she threw something at AnnaBeth). AnnaBeth didn't know what to think and the girl wrapped her arms around AnnaBeth's neck and gave her a really big hug to say she was sorry. AnnaBeth wasn't quite sure what to think and tried to pull away until I explained that the girl was just telling her she was sorry for throwing the cone at her. Then it finally clicked and all was right in her world again.

While we were there, it was also story time Friday (this happens every other Friday). This is completely free and the kids are read a story by someone who works at the activity center and then they do an art project related to the story. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull AnnaBeth away from all of the fun she was having but when I asked her if she wanted to go to story time she immediately started talking about reading a story and made her way toward the doors of the gym. I had invited my friend Becca to join us with her daughter Taryn and she had invited her friend Lisabeth and her daughter Macy. AnnaBeth said goodbye to the girls and we headed over to story time. She did fairly well with sitting and being quite for the story but the art project...well, let's just say that a hungry 2 year old and an art project don't mix. She (ok, I) quickly glued on some of the colored tissue paper and glued on the googly eye and we left before a real meltdown occurred.

I am planning on taking AnnaBeth on my Fridays off up until Mason is born and then we will start going every Friday once I have recovered from birth and feel like it's something I can handle. It's a great way for her to get some exposure to other kids and learn to share and play with others. I can't wait to take her again!