Addy's Princess Room

Addy wanted a pink princess room. I wanted a room that would last a little longer than her love for princesses. I decided to paint stripes and have my brother add some crown and chair rail. Why keep it easy?....it would not my style.... My original goal was to get it all done in the 4 days Elliott was out of town....funny goal to set. Talk about a lot of work! It is one thing if I wanted to paint it BUT I wanted to paint stripes, caulk, sand, and paint the moldings, paint some furniture, hang curtains and wall decorations. Not to mention moving all the furniture out of the room and then back in... all while being a single mom/taxi driver. I did get most of it done but decided he could help to get it finished.

Before just plain tan walled room.

Getting ready to paint stripes. I carefully measured and taped. Left for dinner to come back to most of the tape laying on the GROUND!!! GRRR...was not happy about that. I was nervous that the stripes wouldn't be perfect with the heavy texture on the walls but it turned out great with the time consuming steps I took for perfect stripes (tape alone doesn't work).

After

Found these baskets at Michael's which are perfect for her stuffed animals and dolls. I found the cutest desk at a consignment store. It is perfect with lots of little drawers for all of her special treasures that she likes to "collect".

Her bedside table was in my neighbors trash 3 years ago...just added some green paint. I antiqued the dresser (had since childhood) and added pink crystal knobs.

Love these carriage prints.

Thanks to Target, Home Goods, Pottery Barn Kids, TJMax, Ross, Kirkland's, and Home Depot Addy got her princess room.

Ryann's Bedroom Makeover

February was a busy month in our house for room makeovers! We have been in our home for 2 1/2 years and Alyssa was the only one that got her room decorated. I guess we were sick of painting after our trend of buying a house-fixing it up-selling it- every two years (4 times) took it's toll. January I got a bug to "makeover" the rooms. It started with Addy's followed by Kylee's and then Ryann's. Talk about exhausting. Kylee and Ryann switched rooms so it made sense to do them at the same time. I had most of the stuff for Ryann's room. It was Alyssa's bedding and decor from her room. Yes that means with Alyssa's giving her bedding to Ryann I will be soon re-decorating her room too! I have already bought her new bedding and the shopping of accessories have begun. Alyssa's room was a pale yellow with this bedding but I let Ryann pick the color for her room from the bedding. I didn't take a before picture. It was just a plain room with tan walls and shutters over the windows. We had my brother add some crown molding, then we added the beadboard paintable wallpaper and chair rail. Now I am on the look out for the perfect chair for her desk. I have to say that I love each of the girls rooms and they are each very different like the girls. It is sad because Kylee was so excited and made the comment that this was the first time her room was done for her and not to sell the house. We don't have any future plans on moving, so yes we are actually decorating for us NOT buyers. I will post pictures of the other rooms soon.

Rainbows and Peace Sign Birthday Party

Alyssa just is turning 11 on the 27th but we had to do her party a little early. This year she chose rainbows and peace signs for her theme. When each girl arrived they picked out their shirt and peace sign bag. Inside the bag was a craft kit for a picture frame and a charm bracelet. They all worked on their crafts before we played games.

Bleach-dying their shirts.

I sent them on a Color of the Rainbow scavenger hunt. They needed one item for each color.

Then we play Color Dance. They would dance until the music stopped. I would yell out a color. If you didn't get on a color you were out.

Time to eat! We had pizza, bread sticks, and fruit in the color of the rainbow.

Making 6 layers of different colors is time consuming but it was worth it!

We're Going to Disneyland Surprise!

We decided to surprise our girls with a trip to Disneyland and The American Girl store. Just so we are perfectly clear...Disneyland is much cheaper considering we have 4 girls.

Wednesday morning I woke the girls up 15 min earlier. This was a bad idea for Addy whom is not much of a morning person. I told them we had a surprise for them and sent them on a treasure hunt that would lead to their surprise. It was suppose to be a box with a Mickey balloon that would float out with a poem attached. Unfortunately, the night before when I was setting everything up the balloon popped while I was trying to put it in the box...:( so sad. I just folded up the balloon around the poem and put it in a smaller box. After the poem I gave them a bag of treat for the trip. I made them Mickey Mouse shaped pancake and off to school they went. I tried to get everything ready while they were gone and we left shortly after they got out of school.

Notice creepy Addy...

We spent 3 days at Disneyland. The weather was great the first day but go worse each day after. Saturday was cold and rainy which meant Disney was dead and we got on rides fast.

Our first ride...Thunder Mountain. This was my favorite ride as a kid. I was almost afraid to go on it because what if it would disappoint me and ruin my good memory of it. Nope still loved it!! So did the girls! It was great because all of the girls were tall enough to go on all of the rides except one. Ryann is our chicken but she was a good sport.

Waiting for the parade...

We had lunch at Ariel's Grotto. While you eat all the princesses come to your table.

I made autograph books for the younger 3 girls. They loved seeing the different characters and getting their autographs.

Dumbo in the rain

Around 3 the girls had enough of the cold rain and we headed back to the hotel for surprise #2.

Kylee collects AG dolls and loves to make stop motion videos and hairstyle video for YouTube. She has never been to an AG store and was VERY excited to go. She now has 11 dolls. Each girl got to pick out a doll and a few outfits and could not wait to get back to the hotel to look at everything they picked out.

Yes it is two-story! And the doll chosen was the doll of the year Mckenna.