Leaps and Bounds!

That's right! We are making leaps and bounds over here in the Potts household. I'm beyond excited.

I think I have mentioned in the past Makenna's sleeping issues. Something that has been VERY hard for me to fix. Ive read books, Ive followed advice and nothing. My little monster* is just very very strong willed and stubborn. We have finally made a break through though. HOORAY! We finally moved back upstairs to our separate rooms. After the playroom reno- a few things have stopped us from quickly going back up there but the biggest was probably my fear. I was so afraid that she wouldn't handle being in her own room (even though our rooms are only separated by a doorway). She loves her room during the day but that still didn't have me convinced that it would make night time any easier. I thought for sure she would go back to waking up every hour (like last time) instead of every 3-4 hours. I was wrong. She seems to really like sleeping in her room. She still wakes up every 3-4 hours BUT she no longer needs to nurse to fall asleep initially. Which sounds like such an easy task to conquer...but if you ever had to conquer it, you would know- its not. At all. Now that she understands me a lot more I am able to tell her that the milk is "all gone". Some nights she fights me a little (like tonight) but other nights she is completely fine with it and lays her head on my chest for me to rock/sing her to sleep. Love. Putting her to bed is SO much more enjoyable now. Not that I hated nursing her to sleep, I didn't . I love bonding with her. I would just really stress on how or if ever she would learn to wean. I definitely didn't want to be forceful about it but I started to think she would just want to nurse forever (insert Grown Ups joke here). Although our sleeping issues are far from being fixed, they are at least on the road. It may be a long road, it may be a short road...but at least we are on the road and not lost out in the dark woods!

In other happenings- she is talking and communicating a lot more. She shakes her head "yes" to answer questions. And 99% of the time its really when she means yes. If not she will say "no". As much as I dreaded her learning the word no- I love the way she says it. Its so cute. She almost sings it. She uses her sign language a lot also. I am SO happy we did that with her. She gets really frustrated when she cant figure out how to tell me something so the fact that most of the time she can, is awesome. Her latest thing is to go around saying "Appy" meaning happy. She will just walk around the house saying "Appy, Appy, Appy". :o) If you ask her if she is happy she will smile and say "Appy". Also when you ask her how old she is she holds up her pointer finger, for 1. So cute. We are still working on colors. She is good with her animal noises and loves loves her some monkeys.

In the last week, she has started to get interested in the tv. I have never forced her to watch tv or even wanted it but instead of having her listen to crap tv all day, I leave kids shows on- usually Nick JR or Disney channel. That way she is at least catching bits of kid friendly learning material if she does listen in. Her favorite show seems to be Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She likes Jack and the Neverland Pirates also...and Sponge Bob. All shows I approve of. I'm not a fan of the weird/creepy shows where people jump around in costumes and talk like babies. Yo Gabba Gabba- Im looking at YOU!

We found some great outdoor toys on Craigs List. Makenna loves them, sometimes its a fight to get her inside. Im glad she finally has something to do out there though! Once we get our fence up this fall, we are set!


*A monster may be a bad thing to you but to me, its my perfect little girl with tons of sassyness and spunk. If you know Makenna, the cutsey girl names just aren't her. She is my monster and I love my monster more that anything.

Silly Dilly

Yipes it’s been a long time! Makenna is getting ready to start college. Juuuust kidding. Some days I feel like its not long before that time is here though. She is growing so fast and learning to talk even faster.

Her first word was “ball” about 2 months ago…aside from the dada gibberish. She would pick up the balls from her ball pit and walk around the house holding it in the air saying “baw baw baw”. So cute. But I guess now that she has moved onto bigger and better words, she doesnt want to say it anymore. It seems like in the past 2 weeks she has been learning faster and now says (on a regular basis) “hi”, “juice” (which sounds like “Zeus”), “shoes” (which sounds like “Sues”), “Dad/Daddy”, “Mom/ Mommy”, “Woah”, “yeah”. And there is something she said all the time, that I cant figure out what she is trying to say but it sounds like a 3 letter word for butt. haha. Also randomly she will repeat other words like Grandpa (Bampa), Nana, Riley, Mike, Michael (I know most people wont believe my 13 month old said Michael but she did, she repeated it right after my brother in law called his son, Michael. I have witnesses!). Every day its something new. Yesterday was “yes”. Usually she shakes her head yes but today she repeated it right back to me. My little jabbermouth :) .

She can also point out her eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, belly, hair and also the same on me. She also signs a lot more now. She signs for “eat”, “milk” “all done” and yesterday she started “more”. The part that amazes me is that I will go a while without practicing more signs then all of the sudden she will just do them- like “more”, I hadn’t shown her that one in weeks and she just did it out of no where when I asked her if she wanted more. She understands so much of what we say also. If you ask her if she wants to take Neiko outside she says a “yeah!” and goes right for her shoes or his leash… then waits at the back door. She just loves to learn and interact with people. We are trying to work on colors right now since she picks up on everything so fast. I hope she is always this interested in learning!   

She definitely takes after her father with the extreme stubbornness and silliness (is that a word? O well, it is now). And she is a little trouble maker! She loves to challenge us, and totally thinks its funny when she gets in trouble. Its so funny watching her giggle…and so hard to fight back the urge to laugh back. And she climbs like a little monkey- just like her Daddy. However she is just like me when it comes to being scared of random things- Like the sound of her Daddy’s truck roaring down the driveway, she was afraid of Elmo at her birthday party (totally something Im afraid of too!).

At every stage of her life I think “this is the fun part” but it just keeps getting more fun. I love how she can communicate and interact. I love watching her little personality grow. I really don’t know what we did all those years without her!

Hooray Summer!

 

Well, Makenna's crawling days are over. She is now walking full time! She is getting big so fast! Before we know it she will be talking like crazy. We have been doing animal noises (and faces). She does this really cute/silly face where she scrunches up her nose and sniffs in and out...and usually has her eyes closed. If you ask her "What does a bunny do?" that's the face you will get! Also, if you ask her what a snake says she hisses. haha. I think its so funny she picked up that noise first, I barely taught her that one. I have been trying to teach her other animals like a dog, cat, lion, frog, etc. She usually just laughs at me though.

Within the last week she has pointed out my facial features while she is nursing. She has "nose" and "eyes" down. We are working on mouth...she loves shoving her fingers in my mouth. Goof.

Speaking of mouths! Her front teef-ers are coming in. One popped through, we are just waiting for the other to. And I seriously cant wait for that- she has been SO cranky. It did result in breaking my cheap self down and getting a Sophie Giraffe for her though. She loves her Sophie though so it was totally worth the money.

Alright, enough talk. Time for some pics!

Pool Fun!

- Taken by her Uncle Mike

    

 

 

Backyard Fun!

-I finally decided to play with the Manual Mode on the camera!

     

 

One Year Pictures!

- taken by her Uncle Mike

 

 

On the Go!

Makenna is offically walking! Hooray! She took her first major steps of May 26th- She is SO proud of herself too. And of course we are super proud of her! Check it out... (dont mind the painting clothes!)

Also, the playroom is coming along nicely! We have made a few changes along the way. The Lime Green that I chose (a few posts back) ended up being a little too bright. I swear it didnt look "lime green" in the sample but it sure was lime green on the wall! We ended re-painting it with Olympic Paint's Asparagus check it out...

Lime Green (the before color for the stairs/ upstairs hallway)

Asparagus (the current color of the stairs/ upstairs hallway)

Just a shade darker but it makes a world of difference.

Also we are not going with the bright blue are carpet for the playroom. We decided it would be too much in that room so we are going to match the carpet thats on the stairs. It will look much better IMO. The carpet should be install this weekend though- YAY!

A big BOO though- I hesitated on ordering the bean bag chairs from Walmart and they are ALL out of stock! Grrr. I am really hoping they restock them. I actually stalk the Walmart site one to many times a day to see if they are available.

Anyway- Im so excited to have it all done. We have almost all the trim up, the railing and most of the spindles up...I even put up the wall decal tree. :o) Im waiting till it is finished for the big reveal though!

In other news, I am really excited- this weekend we are doing a local 3 mile walk for Breast Cancer called Paint the Porch Pink with a few friends. Its a cause thats really near and dear to me since a few wonderful women in my family have been survivors of breast cancer. And my wonderful Nana passed away from it when I was 3. Im excited to help support these - and the other amazing women out there who have battled with it!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Curtains!

I think I found the curtains for the playroom, Hooray! They are at Walmart- 19.99 for 2. Not too bad. I love that they are bright and have all the colors that we are using but aren't crazy busy. Whatcha think?



Also, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to everyone!

Comfy Butt...

I mentioned in the last post how I was on the hunt for Bean Bag Chairs for the playroom. I think I found a winner! WalMart.com has these guys (below) for a great price, $39.88 $29.00. Who-Rah! My only problem is that they only have pink and purple in stock...not the blue or green yet. So I may get Makenna a purple one then just order a blue or green when they come in. Ya know, just in case she has a little brother in the future... ;o)

Lets Play! (sneak peek of the playroom)

Time is flying by. I cant believe its May already, Makenna will be one NEXT MONTH! Geeze. At the same time though, it feels like she has been around forever. Its really hard to remember what life was like without her. Our world revolves around this beautiful little girl of ours!

I am hoping she will start walking this month, she is definitely been letting go of things and standing on her own more often. This weekend she stood by herself in the grass for about 2 minutes… and also took 1-2 steps this weekend. She is getting brave! Very exciting. And to celebrate her (almost) milestone of walking...we got a fence for the yard! We have been looking into all kinds of fences, we love the look and low maintenance of vinyl but with our yard being as big as it is, it just wasn't in the budget. We decided we didn't need to go over the top for a fence. We have good neighbors...so it wasn't a huge issue of privacy, more of keeping our family in and the random loose neighborhood dogs out. Waylon found a black chain link on Craig's list (I swear he would build our house from Craig's List alone if he could). This is actually the style we were looking at, IMO its the nicer looking chain link. We roughly calculated that we would need to spend about $2,000 in fencing for the chain link...and then we wanted to do vinyl in the small section in the front of the house (so it looks purdy-er from the street). What did my thrifty husband end up getting the fencing for? Drum Roll Please..... $500.00! Sha-Zam. Its in awesome condition also since it is only 1.5 old. We totally win. We still have to clean up the yard to make room for the fencing and go through the Twp for the permits... and since we have a bazillion other projects going on, it will be awhile before its up but I'm super excited.

Speaking of other projects, we are still working on her playroom/the steps. I cant wait for the big reveal! Its a ways to go. Waylon is a busy busy man. He always has a million projects going on between side jobs or projects here. I wish I could help with more but he is so skilled when it comes to that stuff and is such a perfectionist, I would end up doing more damage than good. I am hoping to paint this weekend though!

Okay, I'm gonna give you a little sneak peak of my ideas. They might be all jumbled up and it might seem like total chaos to you but I can picture it so clearly in my head!

Paint

Olympic Paints- Green Grapes	This will be the main color for the walls in her playroom. We wanted a lighter color so all the bright decor would pop.
Olympic Paints- Ocean Breeze	This will be the ceiling color for her playroom
Olympic Paints- Lime Green	This will be the color of the wall the stairs are on, continuing up the steps into the closet area.

The Ceiling

Clouds-We decided (with the help of my very talented brother) to do vector clouds on the ceiling. We wanted it to be light and not stand out a TON so that is why the blue is such a light color. The clouds will look something similar to the shape of these clouds.

Sun- This light fixture from Ikea inspired the whole ceiling to be done with clouds, I absolutely loved it…

The Wall Decor

We got this adorable wall decal (on the left) at Kohls for like $20. Its pretty big too. Then I couldn't resist the other decals to go with it.

My Mom and I found these fun signs at Target…

We are going to get the same shelf from Ikea as we got for her bedroom. This guy…(but lay it on its side again.)

Then we have these adorable drawers for it. They are a little off the theme of woodland critters but they are too fun and bright for me to resist!

Above the wall shelf (that will be on its side) we will have a small flat screen tv. Then on each side of the tv we are going to hang a square box that will hold the cable box/dvd player (on one side) and movies (on the other). Out of reach of the little ones.

On the wall across from the entertainment center there are two windows that take up a good amount of the wall but I would like to put a hanging bookshelf in between them (since Makenna loves to tear up her books still). I just found these boxes today and absolutely love the idea…and color!

I think Waylon is going to build a simple window seat to go underneath the bookshelf for seating for us adults, and more storage…

We are still hunting for a few bean bag chairs for the kids to sit in while they watch movies or read. Those stinkin things are so expensive. And of course I'm picky about the colors.

And lastly, we will be getting my old toy box from my parents and paint it.

Plenty of storage!

Oh- I also have plans for the wall in front of the steps to be a “chalkboard” wall with clips for hanging her artwork above it. I probably wont do this right away since Makenna is still way to small for artwork and chalk. It would be a perfect wall for this though because we are unable to put anything there since it will block the doorway.

Flooring

Since we will have the wood floor continue into that space, we needed something a little more kid friendly to protect both the kids and the floor. We decided to go with a bright blue area rug that Waylon will get from his work and have them bind the sides. It will cover MOST of the wood flooring in that room.

And there you have it…

I’m really excited to see all these ideas come together.