mini makeover

I’ve been slowly transforming Delaney’s room from a nursery to a big girl room. I didn’t want to do anything drastic or spend a ton of money, so it has taken the better part of the summer.

Here’s an idea of what it looked like before:

These pictures were from waaay before, but the only thing that had changed was the bed. And the roommate.

I had the two curtain panels on the left from my classroom at our old building. Of course I couldn’t find one more, so I found something similar.

For the bed, I bought a white dust ruffle, new hot pink sheets, a white quilted pillow sham and the owl pillow. We already had the comforter and the kitty. :)

This was the dresser I bought at a second hand store. It was a steal at $25!!!

I painted it white to match the rest of the furniture and it added 3 drawers for miscellaneous storage.

This was the toolbox that I bought at the antique store.

Delaney helped me paint it and now it stores some of her favorite bedtime stories.

I made the bunting using an awesome die cut that I borrowed from a friend. Cutting those triangle by hand would have been tedious.

The bow board is just a fabric covered canvas with ribbon. Now it's so easy to find hair accessories!

  

These say “love, smile and hug”. I cut out 6 inch circles from scrapbook paper and glued two circles together. Then I used a die cut to punch out the letters. I punched a tiny hole at the top and bottom and connected them with fishing line. I also made some for my classroom that say “dream, imagine and believe”. This was an idea from Pinterest.

 

Delaney is very proud of her new room and how clean it is. We’ll see how long that lasts!!

fashion show

Delaney is constantly changing clothes, playing dress-up and searching all the closets for clothes to try on. The other day she came out of her room wearing this:

And this is what she looked like the first time she wore it:

Her “coming home” outfit. Precious baby. Who knew she would grow up to be such a spirited little girl!

yummy breakfast treat!

I’ve been seeing this recipe on pinterest for donuts made out of biscuits. But my mom has been making these for as long as I can remember. So as far as I’m concerned, she’s the original maker of “biscuit donuts”. Mmmmmm

 

Start with a can of cheap biscuits. I use the cap from a 2 liter bottle of pop (soda, if you aren’t from Kansas!) to make the donut hole. Fry them in melted shortening until they are browned. Drain on a paper towel.

 

Delaney is on a cinnamon and sugar kick lately, so I let her mix up some cinnamon and sugar in a bowl and coat a few donuts. I prefer powdered sugar on mine!

Yes, she’s smelling it. She smells all her food before she eats it! She gets all her weird quirks from her daddy!

These aren’t the prettiest things, but they sure are yummy! Next week I’m jumping back on the weight-loss wagon, so I’m enjoying all my high calorie, high fat foods this week.

spray park

Melissa and I took the kids to a spray park and they had a blast!

If you can’t beat the heat, make the most of it!

disney

We did Disneyland in one day. One long day. We stayed at a hotel outside the resort and ended up walking the mile (or so) to and from the park. It wasn’t bad at 7:30 in the morning. At 6:00 pm, it wasn’t so fun.

We rode just about every ride in the park. Delaney LOVED the roller coasters. She’s such a thrill seeker! There were 2 rides she couldn’t ride because she wasn’t tall enough…Indiana Jones and Matterhorn Bobsleds.

We also spent A LOT of time standing in line to meet characters and get their autographs.

Rapunzel had a line that was at least a 45 minute wait. I decided that was out of the question and fortunately Rapunzel was hidden away in her tower so Delaney couldn’t see her. Unfortunately, as we walked past said tower, Delaney snuck a peek through an open door and saw Rapunzel with her flowing hair. So we did what any good parent would do. We lied to her and told her Rapunzel was sick.

 

We left the park around 6ish and ate dinner off site (in an attempt to save a little moolah). Then we walked that dreaded trek back to our hotel for a little rest and to get jackets for the night. We walked back to the park and stayed until it closed at midnight.

See my shoes? Everyone always says, “Don’t wear flip flops to Disney. Be sure to wear your tennis shoes!” Well I rebelled and wore my super comfy Nike flip flops. And I think I was the only family member whose feet didn’t hurt.

Here are few other Disney tips you might appreciate:

**You can download a Disney app to your phone. It lets you know wait times for rides and the locations of various characters. It was quite helpful!
**I wore a sling backpack (from Thirty-One) and kept a few snacks in it as well as a water bottle and Delaney’s autograph book. The snacks were great to hold us over while standing in line.
**Use the Fast Pass whenever you can. You can only do one at a time, but it’s a real time saver for those popular rides.
**Get to the busiest rides early. We had virtually no wait at Space Mountain because we rode it early in the morning.

vacation, day 4

We went to Huntington Beach on our way to Anaheim. Delaney loved the sand. She kept saying, “The sand feels amazing!”

Allison really wanted to go to Hollywood. But Jeremy convinced her that Hollywood was actually filled with hookers and drug dealers, rather than celebrities. And her chances of seeing Miley Cyrus there were pretty slim. So in an effort to appease her, we went on a search for the Hollywood sign. Even Jeremy, a California native, didn’t know how exactly to get there. So I put it in my handy navigator on my phone and we ended up at an observation point at a park. I felt like we were close, but we weren’t finding it. We continued up the mountain road and people kept parking their cars and getting out. We weren’t exactly sure what they were looking at. Then Allison turns around and says, “Hey, it’s behind us!” Sure enough. After all that, we almost missed it!