3:07 in the AM

Lydia is a pretty darn good sleeper. It took her about eight months to figure it out, but once she got it... she got it. Most nights she goes down at eight and then wakes up at 7:30 the next morning. 

However, this was us at 3:07 A.M. on Saturday night/Sunday morning. 

It's our own fault for thinking that we could drive home from Morgan at 10:30 and then just move her from the car to her bed when we got home. (In our defense, we've done it countless times with no problem.) She woke up just a bit too much in the transition and was alert and ready to play. And play. And play. I tried cuddling with her/nursing her in the chair in her room. I tried bouncing her on my shoulder. Finally, we ended up downstairs where she played with her toys and I alternated between falling asleep on the couch, reading her books, and mindlessly scrolling through pinterest. 

We were both pretty tired the next day, but as I look back at this picture (that was taken and snapchatted to my mom and sister) I am grateful for such a happy baby. I'm grateful that I have her and am the one who is able to stay up with her at all hours of the night. I'm grateful for the technology that allowed me to capture that moment. I laugh as I remember her running around, pushing her popper and turning over her music block. I can still see her little grin, as if she knew that she was cheating the system and getting some bonus play time. 

Dear Lydia, I love you and I love that I am your mom. 

Friday Five

Five of the best things that happened this week:

1- We had our house sprayed for spiders and wasps. You see, this weekend we found a black widow outside in our rock wall, which totally freaked me out. After calling many pest control places, we found Beeline Pest Control (they were very affodable, had great reviews and were the only office with Saturday hours). It basically took me all week to finally stop freaking out so much - but I am a happy girl thinking of all those scary spiders curling up to die.

2- We went swimming with the Cooper's. I swore to myself that I was going to go swimming every week this summer to take advantage of our awesome pool (I love swimming), but unfortunately I haven't quite made that goal. However, it was SO nice to just go and relax in the water. Lydia and Elsie took turns floating in the baby pool-float, Carson ran around and played in the shallow end of the water, and Ashley and I had a great time relaxing in the sun.

3- David and I finally finished planting ground cover in our rock wall. All of the original dirt had completely washed out, so we had to back fill everything like crazy before we could plant our plants. Hopefully everything will take root and work to keep the dirt in place between the rocks. (And hopefully keep scary spiders at bay.) Each night after we put Lydia down, I would change into long pants, tennis shoes, a long sleeve shirt, an overshirt, and then tuck my sleeves into my gardening gloves. We joked that the only spider protection I was missing was a head cover. Thankfully, it looks as if the bug spray did it's job well as we didn't have any other spider problems this week. Next week we will start working on our front yard!  (Our rock wall went from having big gaping holes went from to having pretty plants like this.)

4- I was able to watch my niece and nephews for a couple of hours this week. Aubrey, Jacob, and Nathan came over and we had a great time playing games, going to the park, eating some yummy food, and letting them follow Lydia around the house. Nathan beat me soundly as we played monopoly. In my defense, I was playing three separate games at the time. Monopoly with Nathan, CandyLand with Aubrey, and a game of Jacobs creation using Monopoly Deal cards and lego ships. I loved every second of it. Once again, I am so grateful to have family close by. It's nice to be able to help out, grow relationships, and know that we have such a great support system.

5-My dear friends, Tausha and Kayla, came for a visit. These Barclay girls (now Bentz and Hall girls) were two of my very best high school friends. I love them both so much. Tausha has been living in San Jose, California for the last year and is in the process of moving to Arizona. Kayla lives in the Washington DC area. They are visiting their family in Manti for a couple of weeks and took the time to come up and visit for a couple of hours. I wish these girls lived closer, but I'm so glad that I got to visit with them. Landon kept following Lydia around trying to give her a hug (which resulted in something much like a body-slam that dropped them both to the floor). He was so sweet and earnest. Lydia wasn't sure what to think about that - but she certainly liked to get as close to him as possible to watch what he was doing. My fondest hope in life is that Lydia and Landon will fall in love and make these girls my real sisters. (Well, something like that - related at least.) Haha.

Happy Friday!

My Laundry Room

I love our house. I love the kitchen, the stairway, the tech center, and the master bathroom. I love the way it looks and love the way it feels. However, if someone asked me to pick my favorite room in the house - I would easily pick the laundry room. Easily. As we were looking to buy a house, our real estate agent must have thought that I was crazy because one of my biggest concerns was the size/condition/location of the laundry room. Houses were not even considered because of their less-than-impressive laundry rooms. When we finally found this house - I was in love. It's right next to the bedrooms, it's self-contained, it has a counter, storage, and a sink. It's perfect. After never having a washer and dryer of our own in the almost-four-years since we'd been married (and the almost-eight-months of Lydia's life) - the sight of these beauties in my perfect little laundry room was heaven.

We opted not to buy the washer and dryer pedestals for $300 more (on sale from the usual $500 more). Such a lot of money for such useless things. I think that my parents store their lightbulbs in the drawer under the dryer - and they can't even open the drawer under the washer because of the required plastic tub. Such a waste of space. Prior to even moving into our house, I was perusing Pinterest and found a pin that linked me to Ana White's building plans for a washer and dryer pedestal.  I knew that this is what I wanted and I enlisted my dad to help me! 

David and I took a weekend and headed to Morgan, where my dad so willingly set aside all of the other projects that he was working on and helped us to build my dream laundry stand. We measured laundry baskets and last minute called the McArthur Sales office to see if they would go and measure the laundry room for us. (Our house was in the final stages of completion, but we hadn't closed yet.) Thank goodness we thought to have them go measure - because we would have built the stand just a few inches too long (I was planning to just go along with the online plans, because I figured that it was for a side-by-side washer and dryer and obviously a washer and dryer would fit in the space). Bless Jesse Curtis for his willingness to go measure for us - because we would have been really sad! 

We left the laundry stand at my parents house, because - well - we still weren't living in our new house yet. David and I helped with the bones of the stand, but my wonderful dad did all of the finishing touches on his own. He used MDF to trim everything out and make it look beautiful. No raw edges showing on this beauty. Thankfully my parents were willing to let it take up space at their house while we waited for ours to be completed. 

Finally we moved in.. The only trouble was that the laundry stand is heavy like, "there is no way I could ever move it on my own" heavy and "I was afraid that we'd have to rent a semi-truck to get it to my house" heavy. Life was pretty crazy and so it stayed at my parents house for another month or so. 

Meanwhile, our there was a lot of this going on: 

And some of this:  

And way too much of this: 

My little sister Melissa and her trusty white Subaru volunteered to deliver the stand to us. Her rock-climbing muscles assisted my dad in loading it up, and they were the only thing that enabled us to get it unloaded when she arrived at my house (David was still at work). Seriously, I carry a baby around all day long, why is it that I have absolutely no upper body strength? Regardless, there was much celebration now that my laundry stand was now at the same address as my laundry room. I hadn't decided what color to paint it, but I quickly realized that white was the way to go. The stand took my spot in our garage while I made plans and gathered the supplies needed to get my paint on. My craft-blog-stalking led me to believe that spray paint would get the job done nicely. One naptime later, we were left with this: 

Boo! It looked like a child had scribbled on it with an old white marker. That was an entire can of spray paint. Realizing that any money saved on not buying brushes or other paint supplies would quickly be spent on another 20 cans of spray paint - I headed back to the store for some real paint and small rollers. 

Two and a half coats of paint, several days drying time, and five strong men later - my beautiful laundry stand was finally at home in my laundry room. Isn't it lovely? 

I love how much room it gives to me. That extra space for baskets is invaluable, and it really is much nicer to have the washer and dryer a bit higher as you as changing loads. It's so pretty, and the details make me smile. (Ignore the little purple toy of Lydia's - I didn't realize it was there where I started taking pictures.) Isn't that little trim so nice? 

Before and after: 

The other day my mom and I were talking about The Fly Lady, and some of the tips she has for keeping your home clean and organized. One of her big things is to always keep the sink clean. My mom jokingly told me that I would have a hard time with that. (We have a rule at our house for the after dinner time, especially when we have guests over: Dishes wait until tomorrow.) We kind of laughed about it, but I totally understand the philosophy. Sometimes if you have one area that you make an effort to keep tidy always - the rest of your house doesn't seem so daunting. It may be weird - but I think that my laundry room is that for me. I love looking through the door and seeing my happy curtains, white laundry stand, and clothes hanging out to dry. It makes me feel as if I've accomplished something, and it makes it easier to clean other areas (like the bathroom across the hall). I love that this area is organized and lends itself to being clean. There is just enough space that clothes don't pile up, and I love to be in this room - so it's easy for me to just fold the laundry as soon as it is done and then put it away. I don't have to stress about bringing my laundry into the main room to fold. It's just all right there. It makes me a happy happy girl. 

 I know that it seems a silly thing to love - but I really do. I can't help but get a smile on my face each time I walk past this happy little room. I have some big plans for it in the future (subway tile, pretty printables, a drying rack, etc... You can see some great ideas on my Pinterest board The Laundry Room) but for right now, I love it just the way it is.

Happy Laundering!