A Project and a Birthday

Once again, too much time in between posts. I will freely admit I've been neglecting my blog (and grading papers) because I finally started reading the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris and they kind of took over every free second of time I had. I only read the first 4 and had to make myself stop so I could get other stuff done!

We've been wanting to paint Ella's room since we moved in, and we decided it would be great to have it done for her when she came home for her birthday weekend/Thanksgiving Break! So last week, every extra minute we had was thrown into redoing this room:

And making it this room:

I know, I know...it's pink, huh? That's what Ella requested--"bright pink" actually, and we went for it! I think it turned out pretty great, right?? This was our first time ever painting a room, and it went pretty smoothly! We are no longer painting virgins!

We also wanted to redo her little chest of drawers. It belonged to my grandparents, and it was a blonde-ish wood with bronze hardware. We wanted it to match everything else in her room, so we pretty much copied my DIY-idol, Just a Girl, to the letter in doing this thing! It turned out pretty well! The only thing is that we only let the paint dry about 20 hours when we probably should've let it go longer because of the rainy weather. The TV scratched the paint off immediately! But it still looks great!

Ella loved it! She still is a little apprehensive about sleeping in there alone, though. It's way down the hall and around the corner from our and Kamden's bedrooms, so the first night back she wanted to give her bed in Kam's room a go.

He's supposed to be lying down to sleep. Riiiiiiiiight. She was going to read one book and then go to sleep. She kept calling out to tell me he was standing up. He was a little distracting=) So she did sleep in her own room that night, but half of the night I was in there and the other half her daddy was:) And then as soon as he came back to our bedroom, she was in about 30 minutes later! We'll see if this continues to be a pattern=)

The next day was Ella's 5th brithday party!!! Yes, our little lady turned 5 years old on Sunday!!! Unbelievable. Her party was a lot of fun...the kids seemed to really enjoy themselves! Here's the birthday girl on her throne...

And here's her beautiful (and delicious!!!!!!!!) Margie cake! (For those of you who aren't family members, Kaleb's Aunt Margie does all the cakes for the family...and the are all just as gorgeous and unbelievably, sinfully delicious!

Ella's main gift from us this year was a bicycle! And a princess helmet and elbow pads, naturally. She loves it!

And lastly, the other child. He's doing well...I know you saw the picture of him in his crib, and you're probably wondering (if you care at all) how his sleep is going. Well.......he does start his night out in his crib, but he wakes up around 1 and I just put him in bed with us so that I can function at work the next day. However! Kaleb and I are both off this week, so we are dedicating ourselves to some serious sleep training with the boy! Last night went great! He went down after his last meal around 10. He slept until probably 12 or 1, when he woke up fussing. Kaleb got him to go back down until maybe 2 or 3. I went in and got him to go back down without nursing!! He woke back up at 5, and that was basically morning, so I brought him to our room and he ate and played for a while before going back to sleep. He went from 10-5 without needing to eat!!! So now that I know he can do it, it'll be much easier to just let him cry without worrying that maybe he really is hungry. Hopefully, though, his waking will start to diminish. Fingers crossed!

At Kamden's sitter's house, there is a walker. And Kamden loves this walker. He goes everywhere in it. He comes to meet us in it when we pick him up, laughing all the way! We were going to get him one, and then one of our friends at church told us she had one she wasn't using!! We've only had it one day and it's already been a HUGE lifesaver!!! He just smiles and laughs and roams the house in it!
It's so nice to know he is able to be mobile yet contained=) He goes all around the house on his hands and knees, too, but the walker makes it much harder to get to cords and wires=)

Lastly, this sweet picture of my sweet possessive baby boy. Does it look like he's saying, "She's mine!!" Oh, I love my life!