yup

Posted on September 27, 2012 by francescaforsyth

OK, i had to get my life in order and so this morning … I did.

Bedroom cleaned, clothes put away, bed made? … done.

Kitchen – dishes washed and put away, countertops and table wiped down, stuff put away, floor swept and dry swiffered twice then wet swiffered? – done.

By the way, that’s my newly painted tabel and chairs. They used to be black. I can’t remember if I’ve shown this before or not. The sunflowers are from the Ann Arbor farmer’s market I went to with Mandee on Saturday. So pretty. I love the flowers … and the farmer’s market.

Front room picked up and vacuumed? … sooo on top of it!

And what you can’t see is the tummy time that was had on this floor after it was vacuumed. And the laundry that was folded and put away (we’re talking 4 loads). And the toilet and sink that were cleaned in the bathroom (the toilet had not only red mold inside, but black too …. and other colorful marks inside). I also took a shower, got dressed and put on makeup. I ate breakfast AND lunch. And there are loads of laundry running right now. PLUS, I came up with the menu for the baby shower I’m working on. As Daniel and my dad would say, “this is one of your special days”.

Now I’d like to kind of keep it this way …. we’ll see how long it lasts. But the real reason I got this all done was because Ray napped! Lo and behold! The baby actually sleeps! I’m convinced it’s the chiropractor now (new theory … I come up with them constantly). He napped from 9-11:30 am and I had to go in and wake him up. Yes. I will say it again. I woke him up. It was awesome. Then he was awake for a few hours – during which I nursed him, gave him a bath, let him play in the bouncer for a bit and did tummy time where he rolled over. Then I put him down around 1:30 and he screamed like the dickens for about 3 minutes and 10 minutes later I looked in on him and he was fast asleep. I am amazed. Chiropractor. That must be it. I am doing nothing different than I was before. But look at all the stinking stuff I can do when life is normal and Ray naps! I feel like a new woman! Seriously. I wish this were the norm, but it’s not, so I have to blog about it when it happens.

sundays, minus church

Posted on June 24, 2012 by francescaforsyth

I have been spending Sundays at home with Ray for the past 3 weeks. Because of this, I have been yearning for some spiritual uplift and that’s where cable stepped in. Yes. Cable. We have access to BYUTV through our cable set up, so for the past three Sundays, I sit down to nurse Ray and see what’s on BYUTV. The past two Sundays have been talks from the most recent Women’s Conference in April of this year. And they have been wonderful! Just what I needed.

Last week I heard a talk that inspired me to move things around in our front room to make a space for the laptop to be accessible to the boys and to be in an open area. The talk mentioned how it is important to have the computer out in the open, where everyone can see what you’re looking at online. I have always thought this was a good idea, but never knew where I would find space in my tiny front room to do that – but after last week’s talk, I made it happen and I love it. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, eh?

This week I heard a few quotes that I wanted to put up in my home. I love word art in the home and I already have a few things up in my front room. But now I want to put things in my boys’ room and other places. One of the quotes is at the top of this post (by the way, I got a template for that design here). The other quote is here:

My little Noah is always so scared at night. I remember being the same way. I was fearful of so many things. I want Noah to know that he does not need to be afraid. So I will put this one in the boys’ room next to Noah’s bed.

As for the quote at the beginning of this post, it may seem odd to have an inspirational quote about making mistakes, but I want my boys to know that no matter what, they are loved. I want our family to feel that. I know it will make us stronger as a little family to know that there is nothing that can stand in the way of us becoming an eternal family, as long as we try.

And that’s my Sunday activity for the day. Happy Sabbath.

Nursery for Baby Ray

Posted on May 6, 2012 by francescaforsyth

OK, it has been a looooooong time coming, but I am finally posting pictures of the nursery I’ve been working on for months.

I still feel ike there’s more to do (like buy a crib … but we’ll do that after all the family comes to visit this summer and we actually move baby Ray into his nursery). But basically, this is it. I do love it. Especially when I was looking at the before and after pictures.

The hardest part of putting the nursery together?? … by far, picking the paint colors. The gray was super hard to pick and then I did, and then I asked my mom for a rug as her baby gift to me and the chevron striped gray and white rug came from urban outfitters and …. the gray on the wall didn’t match the gray in the rug. So, of course, it was back to Home Depot for more gray paint. I am a bit of a perfectionist (Daniel is laughing and saying “a bit??!”) Anyway, I made and painted or sewed everything in the room because I wanted everything a certain way. Even the changing pad cover. I wanted to make sure it didn’t sag but was nice and taut, so I made one myself after I ordered very specific yellow fabric online at fabric.com and added velcro to the back to make sure it didn’t sag … you get the picture. I will just show pictures now and then as we go along, I’ll describe my various projects:

First, the before pictures (I love this. It’s so satisfying and it completely bypasses about 6 months of work).

The room and closet:

Then I organized all of the above craft stuff into my basement, here:

And then I did the nursery and here we go .. after pictures:

I sewed the elephant art myself after looking at etsy for days for a perfect elephant print and never finding it. So I combined ideas that I saw and this Dr. Suess quote and did it myself. The frame below it is something I made a long time ago and never used, so I put it away, then pulled it out when Noah made this little note for the baby (totally unprompted). Noah came up to me one day and said, “I made a card for thr new baby. He can open it on his birthday, when he’s born. That’s his birthday right?” I love it. It’s one of my favorite parts of the room, and one of the smallest too. It’s the details that count. Look what he wrote inside:

I made these numbers … twice. yes. twice. I loved the numbered hooks I saw at potterybarn kids and land of nod, but they were so pricey. Then I saw some girl online that made her own numbered pegs by getting metal house numbers and hooks from home depot …. and this idea was born: to get wooden numbers and wrap them in yarn for a soft and textural affect, then use hooks below. The only problem was that I wrapped the numbers in the wrong color yarn. I didn’t really realize it until they were on the wall and the yarn color looked too teal. So I had to rewrap them and I did. And I love them.

The diaper bag was something I researched for a while and decided on this one. It is by Jujube and I love it like crazy. The best part? It is originally $225 and I got this one on ebay for $100 less!!! Woo hoo! I felt like I won something when I bought it. It was totally like the ebay commercial “shop victoriously” … seriously.

The hat is the infant newsie hat that Baby Ray will wear on his blessing day. I got it from Children’s Place at Easter time. Daniel asked me if I was really going to “make” him wear it. of course I am. sheesh. Silly question.

I saw something similar to this mobile online but they didn’t have the right color scheme, so I just got a large hole puncher and I already had some fishing line (who doesn’t?!) and I made it myself. It’s perfect.

These shelves and picture above were something I had been planning on doing from the very beginning. The print I bought off etsy from Lisa Barbero. I adore it. Daniel thinks it’s not that cool.

These shelves are spice rack shelves from IKEA. I’ve had them forever and used them in various ways and here’s another – as a baby library. I have been adding new board books over the past few months, because the baby books I’ve kept form the other two boys have been basically ruined – torn apart, chewed through, ripped and I thought this little guy deserved a few good books. I have lots of little favorites in these shelves:

the Sophie the giraffe toy I got form my sisters,

the Sandra Boynton “Hippos Go Beserk” book in the perfect colors of the room (aqua and yellow)

the Matthew Van Fleet “Heads” book seemed especially appropriate since Noah’s first baby book he received was Matthew Van Fleet’s “Tails” book,

and my most recent addition: the colorful tiny board books of feelings. Adorable. I love this part of the room.

It may seem silly to take pictures of the closet, but scroll back up and see those hideous before pictures of the closet and you will be as impressed as I was when it was all complete. ahhhhh, I take a sigh of relief everytime I open the closet door. This will probably be short-lived, since I will actually start using the closet soon and then it will all be destroyed, but for now – it looks divine.

Do you see the blessing shoes my sisters got me on etsy?? They are the crocheted ones, fourth ones in from the right. Wha? Too many shoes for a newborn that can’t walk?? I don’t think so.

This little elephant came from Daniel’s mom. I love it. She brought it home to Liam from the British Museum in London and when you blow on one end, it sounds like a mini horn. It’s all wood and just pretty. Liam is just loaning it to the baby room.

This has to be the easiest, yet biggest impact project of the room. Made from paper and sewn together on ribbon. It’s so cheerful.

And there you have it. I always love it when people put lots of details and pictures of their homes, so I did. Maybe too many. Oh well.