I heart chalk paint!

So a few weeks ago my husband scored this huge piece of furniture for pretty much nothing!!

Is it not wonderfully huge, and just crying for a make over???

I have read so many blogs on chalk painting, and thought it is time to give this a try!! Since this was my first time, I wasn't brave enough to make my own, so I decided to just purchase some from the old Home Depot.  After giving it a good wipe down, and taking all the handles off, I started painting!  I was so excited at how easy it was to just do my 2 coats and let that baby dry!  As soon as it finished drying I got my sanding block out and distressed it just a bit, and smoothed out the not to awesome spots... When I was all done making it "rough" I used the wax to seal it, and she was all ready to get hardware back on it... I used all the previous hardware and spray painted them oil rubbed bronze and I think it turned out pretty nice! :)  Here is the after!

Such a dreamy gray blue!! :)  

  I need to take a new photo to show the color better! :)  Next time I will have to do a post on my AMAZING desk!! :)

I pray... Prayers for my children!

The past couple of months myself and family have discussed, as morbid as this sounds, death.  I have never mentioned this on here before, but my father-in-law passed away on July 3 from a long battle with renal cell cancer.  He was only 48.  With that being said, I feel like the subject of death has been a dominant subject with family members, and the conclusion I have come to is, I want to leave a mark on my small little section of the world, and make a difference.  I feel like in my corner of Georgia,  as a stay at home mom, I am not capable of many things, but I have these 2 little lives entrusted to me from the Lord, Baylor and Stella, who will be my legacy! These are my hopes and prayers for them....
   I pray they know the joy of the Lord that literally makes me want to giggle and cry when I feel it all over me.. (Open up the Heavens by Meredith Andrews makes me bubble over).  I pray they know that their mama loved her Savior and her babies more than her own life! Oh how I love Jesus, I love my quiet times, and can feel him so near I know if I just open my eyes, I will see Him.  I love that he fills every part of my heart and soul!  He has mended my heart and filled, refilled, and filled it again, with his love and grace every time I have given it away. Oh how He loves me.. He loved me so much that he sent me a man that would understand and get every part of me and love me so!  I pray my children know how much I love their father, I love that man to the moon and back a million, billion times!  We aren't perfect, but we love God together!  When Jesus is the center of it all, it makes the bad times a little bit easier.  I pray for their future spouses, who ever they may be I pray they love God so much that their love for God is reflected in their love my children... I can't even express how much this means to me.  My hope for my children is for them to know who they, are and who they are in Christ. I pray they make good choices for their lives, I pray their mistakes be few, and their experiences be many.  I pray they love and respect us!  I pray they respect themselves and be leaders... I pray that they be blessed beyond measure and have joy unspeakable! I hope they know... I pray for them. My heart could burst with all that love I have for them... The verse that keeps flooding my soul is "The Lord has done great things for us, and filled us with joy! -Psalm 126:3
  This has been a rambling of thoughts and prayers, but I hope Baylor and Stella find this one day and see I prayed for them! :)

Stage, Stage, Stage that house!!

Well here we are just one year into our home and we are ready to move again!!  As much as we like our house, as soon as we found out we were pregnant with Stella we grew out of this house.  So here we are again putting our house on the market and trying to find a new one!  The one thing that is so frustrating looking at houses is the fact no one declutters/updates their home!  It makes me want to scream when I looking at home online... While I totally get not wanting to take down family pictures because I won't do it either, but please if you still have dark burgundy rooms and brass fixtures, UPDATE to a neutral color and brushed nickel to appeal to more people.  If you aren't selling your home do whatever meets your fancy, but sometimes if you want to sell that house you gotta appeal to a broad audience.  My home is not perfect, and if I had endless money supplies I would decorate all day long... So I  just work with what I got :)  Our first home sold one day after being on the market and this home sold after just being on the market 2 days.. I give credit to our awesome relators Chris and Julie Hunt, but I also know we made their job a little easier by making sure our home looked a little appealing to buyers!  So here is our house! Thank God it sold quickly, trying to keep it clean with a 2 year old and 4 month old is HARD!  Also both homes sold FULL asking price!

First things first... Make sure the outside looks nice, no one wants to buy a house that has no curb appeal!  Just adding a little something is better than nothing!

Stella Kate's Nursery!

We had Stella Kate's newborn pictures taken a few weeks ago and our wonderful photographer captured so many AMAZING shots, not only of her but of her room as well! :) Huge shout out to By Design Creations!

                  

                       

      I knew from the beginning I wanted to do navy and pink for her room and I knew we were on a  tight budget (I always try to see how cheap we can do things) for her room.  Since Baylor decided to become a stunt man and climb out of his crib we moved my old bed into his room and repainted his crib an off white color.

  I also found an old dresser on a online yard sale site for $50.00!  We repainted it the same color as the crib and I spray painted some of our old kitchen cabinet knobs gold and we put them on the dresser.  I wish I could find a before picture but for now the after is all I have.

  Her curtains I used Pinterest to find a how to on how to use Walmart sheets and make them look like the cool Anthropologie ruffled ones so I spent like 15.00 on twin flat sheets to make her curtains.

  I sewed the baby bedding and I believe I spent $50.00 for all the fabric. :) The chair we ordered from Wayfair for 150.00 and I redid an old lamp we had and used extra fabric I had to do that. :)  The pictures on the wall were from our sweet friends as a gift, but the frames were only $3.00 each from Walmart.  The wall color is Naval from Sherwin Williams.

I redid a lamp from our old house for her room because I could not find anything that just went with her room.  The before lamp is this.

I absolutely adore her room, I only want to do a few more things and it will feel complete :)

Welcome to the world Stella Kate!

So before I forget I want to write Stella Kate's birth story.. It is always nice to go back and read Baylor's birth story and I want to have the same for Stella!
   At my 38 week appointment my midwife had checked me and had said I was 3cm dilated and 40% effaced... I was excited since a couple weeks ago I had only been a 1 and not effaced at all.  I had been going back in forth in my head about induction or letting things happen naturally...I wanted to let things happen naturally, but we live so far from the hospital I wanted to deliver at I was nervous about making it in time and what to do with Baylor.  So at my appointment we discussed it and she felt that I was favorable for induction and I would go in Wednesday evening and begin induction early Thursday morning May 1st when I was 39 weeks.  Starting that next day I knew from being checked I would be sore and have some contractions... Well I was loosing my mucus plug (I know grossest words in the world) and it just kept like that all weekend.  Sunday during church I started having some contractions that were uncomfortable and I had to get up during church to see if it could help some, thankfully they fizzled out since I was really excited to have my prenatal massage on Monday while Baylor was in pre-school!  We had a good rest of the day just relaxing and I went to the grocery store to grab a couple of meals until we went to the hospital.  Monday I dropped my little man off at school and went and enjoyed the most wonderful hour massage a pregnant girl could ask for!  I was so excited because I felt so relaxed and it was going to help me sleep! I picked Baylor up from school and we came home ate lunch and I put him down for a nap and I slept a few minutes with him.  Well I went to the restroom and I noticed I had my "bloody show" (another awesome pregnancy term) and thought ok, next couple of days we could be having a baby and no induction.  I really wanted to avoid pitocin like the plague!  Well I laid back down in our room and noticed I was having some light contractions around 2.... by 3:30 I was like I am going to start timing these they are getting a little more uncomfortable...They were coming about every 9 minutes apart.  I started thinking well maybe I am in early labor, but this could last days and I don't want to go to the hospital tonight since there are suppose to be some bad storms.  Zach got home and asked how I was feeling and I was telling him what I was feeling and how the contractions were 8 or 9 minutes apart, but I would cook dinner first then call the doctor and get her opinion.  I called and of course she says if you think you need to come in then you should, but generally rule of thumb is 5 minutes apart lasting 1 minute for 1 hour.  Since we live farther I had already planned to come when they were 6 or 7 minutes.  So we finished dinner up and took Baylor outside to play and the contractions were coming every 6 minutes and my mom was like you need to go, so I went inside and took a shower and told Zach to call his mom since she was going to stay with Baylor!  So while we waited for them to get there we popped popcorn for Baylor and I sat with him and cried a little since he wasn't going to be my only baby anymore. While we are getting things together of course the storms had started a little bit and we had a tornado warning for our county!  Of all things to happen a tornado!!  Thankfully we didn't get any of and were able to get out the door by 7:45 to head to the hospital... We make it to the intersection at 34 and Zach realized he forgot his wallet!  I was like if I miss out on an epidural I blame you entirely! lol! We finally get to the hospital and my contractions are about 5 and 1/2 minutes apart so we get into triage at labor and delivery and I get checked and I am 4cm and  80% effaced with my water bulging (I guess it was thinking about breaking).  By now of course my contractions are getting a little farther apart and I am on the borderline of rather to be kept or be sent home so they send me out in a gown and my gold sandals to walk the hospital, my sweet family was there walking the hallways with me and helping me get through some of the more painful contractions.  We walk for an hour and then I get checked again and am still just a 4 so they send me walking again at midnight and my parents and Zach were walking with me and the contractions were just getting so uncomfortable...I get checked one more time and I have made a little more progress so they finally decided to admit at 2am!  I am so sleepy by this point and the lady drawing my blood is like I can't believe you are yawning through your contractions!  It had to be the massage!  ;)  We finally get set up in a room at 3:30 and got my iv put in and they gave me some medicine to put the edge off and sleep.... I was so sleepy, but the contractions would randomly wake me up and I knew the way I was feeling I was working against my body and tensing up!  I tried so hard to relax and just let it happen, but it was awful... When I got checked again at 6 I was only a 5 so they decided to start pitocin to help my contractions get more regular. UGH they got regular and PAINFUL!!!  At 8am my midwife walked in and I was so happy to see her because she always just makes me feel better!  She decided to check me and break my water, well while she was checking me I had the worst contraction and she couldn't fully check me and thought I was only dilated to a 6... This is when I decided lets get things rolling for an epidural!  The fluids began and at 9 something I got the sweet relief of the epidural!  Zach almost passed out since he decided to watch and I was so annoyed because it was the same time I needed him to hold my hand through my contraction with some needles sticking out of my back! loL!  They decided to check me when it was in and I was already an 8.  By the time my family came back in to say hey and see how I was doing I was talking to them and said Oh I am having some pressure in my butt, and my mom was like oh call the nurse! Everyone goes out and the nurse checks me and said well nothing is hanging out so thats good, and then she goes to check me and says well I can see her head!  She went and called the midwife and my mom came back in the room to be there too and they begin to set everything up.  The nurse said lets try a practice push with the next contraction and I guess the contraction started to push her out and she said lets not do that and Stephanie will be here in just a second.  So as soon as she came in she got her stuff on and said ok lets push on the next contraction and I pushed and she was out! Stella was absolutely gorgeous and it was so shocking to see her with SOOOO much hair!!  We were ecstatic!   I was so happy my baby girl was here and healthy and just amazed at what my body can do!  :)  Stella Kate said hello and 10:38am weighing 7 lbs 10 oz and 19 1/2" long with a 13 3/8" head!

It's a...

GIRL!!!!  Obviously if you follow me on Facebook we have known this for quite sometime, but I never post on here so finally announcing it to the blog world lol!  We found out in November and we could not be any happier on welcoming our sweet Stella Kate to the world in just a few short weeks!  I feel like this pregnancy has flown by!  (Probably since I am chasing my almost 2 year old 90% of the day!)  We have been so busy preparing her nursery and trying to finish up miscellaneous projects the last couple weeks I can finally see light at the end of the tunnel! :)  I need to post pictures of the new house and all the changes it has undergone!  This house has definitely been more challenging than the last one and I can already see a move in the next few years since we will now be a family of 4!   I will a picture of her crib bedding since we did get that done ... I still haven't decorated the walls since I am a little lost on exactly what my vision is!

So this is the bedding! We are using navy, pink, and white with gold and grey as some accent colors... The recliner for her room was delivered yesterday, it is gray and I love it!  I just have to figure out everything I am doing, I am so scattered brained this time around! :)  Well hopefully my next post will be the nursery finished before I have a baby in my arms :_