Parnellisms...and What I've Been Up To

I know all of us have those words that our kids say incorrectly and, try as we might, we almost cannot bear to correct them. They are so cute! So I've made a list of words my children use and that sometimes, I find myself using as well!

Fwanket. Emma called her blanket this for months. She has moved on to Bwanket ('L's are still a problem) but I still like to say Fwanket.

Peek a Yoo. Emma's version of Peek A Boo. Alex has started using it as well. I almost exclusively use Peek a yoo. It's SO FUNNY!

Bootball. Pronounced like football, just with a b. Courtesy of Mr. Parnell. Oh he knows the difference between the different balls, we have baseball, bootball, asketball, and soccer ball. But by far, my fave is bootball.

Muck. Alex's version of milk. And sometimes, I ask both children if they would like more Muck. They understand me.

Um, I sort of thought there were more. Maybe there are, but I got nothing. Just asked Hubs (fresh off his second loooong nap of the day - he had a conference call that lasted until 4am last night. Er, this morning.) His brain is fried so he had no
additional comments. I'll let him slide.

So, since that was so short, I'll fill you in on what I've been working on. I redecorated the living room mantle. It just had 6 family pictures and a candle arrangement thing on it before. I didn't take a before picture, hmm...that was bad. I just get these urges and GO! Let me see what I can find in my pictures...be right back. Yawn, right? So I just rearranged and stole from other rooms and stuff and came up with this:

I'll break it down from left to right:
1. old map covered chest/boxy thing that Jeff, yes Jeff, brought into our marriage. It's been on the floor of our bedroom for years.
2. Crystal cross we got as a wedding present that has never really had a great home. Now I love where it sits!
3. Willow Tree figure of brand new parents that we got at Emma's dedication. LOVE.
4. Family picture (that yes, needs to be updated. I agree. It's on the list of my To Dos. Just not very far up there.)
5. candle covered in a pretty beaded wine bottle cover thingy. Loved the wine bottle cover but we don't really drink wine so it's been sitting sadly in a drawer for a few years. I LOVE that I get to use it and see it now.
6. Same goes for the pretty wine cork. See above.
7. Wooden sled my grandmother had (and that I played with as a small girl). There's a story there somewhere, but I'd have to get up and go look it up, but that sled is old. I don't even care that it's a sled and a. we never use those here in Texas or b. that it's a wintery decoration. i. love. the. sled. There, done.
8. Great grandmother's sewing basket. Love.
9. Random red candle sitting on pretty wine bottle coaster. See # 5.
10. Picture of Jeff and I the weekend before Alex was born. I should update this at LEAST so I don't look so fat, right??? How's that for motivation?
11. Glass bottles bound with metal. I think I got this from my mom's house during one of her cleaning out for KCM times. Filled it with some red rocks I got at Pier 1 a hundred years ago and instant love.
12. Token wedding picture in the token glass wedding frame. I love this picture so I do not plan to update it. (come on, what else do you put in a glass wedding frame??)
Sorry the picture is kinda bright. We get yummy afternoon sun in the windows next to the fireplace AND I made a fort with a ginormous blanket using the window ties from the window on the right and I didn't think it would add to the aesthetic if I included it in the shot.


And on to the kids bathroom.  I have tons of storage in there.  But no where to hang towels to dry.  My mom gave me some really cute hooks that I thought would be adorable in the mudroom.  But as you can see in my post here , the mudroom is done.  I had some hooks already in there...why ruin a good thing, right?  So someday I want to add bead board to the upstairs bathroom, and those aforementioned hooks would be perfect in there.  AND solve my towel hanging problem.  So I quickly (seriously, this project took me about 25 minutes) drilled the holes for the hooks and was pleased.  But it needed something.  So I fired up my cricut and cut an A and an E out of chipboard, cut another A and E out of cute scrapbook paper, and then wondered how I would attach the letters to the wall.  It's not the best solution, but it was the best I could come up with.  Before I attached the scrapbook paper, I just took a flat thumb tack and pushed it through the chipboard and the wall.  Then I covered the letters with the scrapbook paper letters.  Viola!  I wasn't completely happy with the look so I carefully pulled the letters off the wall (the thumbtack is completely hidden by the pretty paper), distressed the edges with a brown stamp pad, and hung em right back up!  I love it.  The kids will be able to reach their hooks and hang/rehang their own towels now.

Yes, my wall is less than stellar.  When we bought this house, the wallpaper situation was horrendous.  Oh my goodness, it was bad.  We have managed, over the years, to rid our walls of the wallpaper plague in every room except for the master bathroom.  Just where the toilet is.  But the upstairs bathroom took the cake.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any photographic evidence of the tragic images on my walls.  That was a mistake.  People, we could have been laughing up a storm right now.  Oh man it was ugly.  It was a brownish, tannish background with like peacock blue paisley swirls.  So. Bad.  But here's the deal with the wallpaper in the house (Brenda Gust, you know what I'm talking about!), it is permanently attached to the wallboard.  So when we relieved our house of the ugly that was upstairs, most of the wallboard pulled off with it.  I am a handy gal but I don't do sheet rock.  I don't tape and float.  And I'm cheap, so I won't pay anyone to do it for me either.  So we lived with an exponentially uglier bathroom for a while.  I was pregnant with Emma.  The week before Emma was born, Jeff's brother and family came over and my sweet brother in law spent most of their visit upstairs in the bathroom trying to re texture the walls and fix the mess the hubs and I had made.  We thought we understood how to do it but we didn't do as good a job as he did.  Meh, plenty of time to fix it.  Except for the fact that Jeff's dad and step mom were coming to visit the 13th of July.  And I was due with Emma the 29th of June.  So one day, while I was at work, Jeff painted the bathroom.  "just for now" so that our company would have a prettier bathroom to use.  So needless to say, there are some gouges where the wallboard was damaged in the removal of wallpaper and I don't care.  Today.  Tomorrow, well, that might be a different story.

And now for today.  See, I found this post here , and got inspired.  I have a ton of those florist vases under my sink.  In fact, at Christmas, we clogged out disposal and in fixing it (and hence getting under the kitchen sink) my brother had to pull out vase after vase after vase...after vase!  They were everywhere.  But who can throw them out?  So I have a bunch.  And I also have trees.  So why can't I make this?  So I clipped some dead branches out of my crepe myrtle in the back (See Jeff?  I'm not really crafting, I'm doing yardwork!  Yay me!) and plugged in my glue gun.  Anthropologie can keep their $78.00 vases.  Mine was free!  I'm not 100% sure I'm in love with the natural look.  I think I'd like to spray the sticks black next time, but the center of my table in the dining room looks MUCH better now, thank you.  And so does my tree out back.  :)  I do like how high the sticks are compared to the top of the vase though.  What do you think?  I keep going back and forth.  Try again with black?  Let it go and move on?  I have to marinate on this one for a while, I think.

And yes, I know this is a long post, but I thought I'd just check in with the progress on the armoire.  It's going.  First I ran out of Mod Podge, then foil.  Then I just ran out of steam.  You know when your enthusiasm runs out and you're not really far enough along to be close enough to finishing to push through?  Yeah, that's kinda where I am.  I'm waiting for a good fairy to come and lift the armoire so I can shove some elevating blocks under it (so I can complete the bottom) and some direction when it comes to painting the inside.  It's a long story.  Just relish in what I HAVE accomplished, mmk?
Have a good night peeps.  I'm off the check on the littles and hop into bed myself.  I have a loooong list of To Dos for tomorrow....