There's a Place For Us

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I am sad that I don't have any pictures of the room before, but here is what I have been working on.

Calvin's room has been a room/office and a catch-all for any clutter in the house. Since his latest hobby is unloading every single drawer and that he can reach or climb to, this has meant a 30 minute clean-up of his room after every "naptime." I have wanted to make the room more of a bedroom for him and make a space for the new baby to be when he comes as well. It has mostly consisted of rearranging and swapping out existing furniture, but the results are great!

Behold, the little boys' room so far:
I just got the toddler bed today. I am so excited about it!

There's still some more to do, but the room is sooooo different than it was a week ago. Phew. I believe I might be nesting...

Calvin now calls this room his "house." I think he's happy with it, too.

Do You Play Croquet?

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Recently, I did more work for the King James Bible documentary, and this time, my duties included props and set dressing for the pickup shots that we had to do. We were able to borrow and buy most things, but we did need a croquet set that looked like it could have been played with in the 16th century. Well, I bought this one at Wal-Mart: 
 And made it into this one:
I was very happy with how it turned out! All I did was sand parts of the mallets, especially the bight colors, so it looked more dull and used. Then I put a coat of a darker wood stain on them. Calvin and I banged and scratched them on the concrete to also look more used. For the balls, I bought brown paper machete balls from Michael's and just used Mod Podge over tissue paper to put a stripe on them. A layer of Mod Podge over the whole ball made it look more wooden.

So there you go! An antiqued croquet set fit for decoration in your rec room.

Summertime

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It finally feels like summer in Provo and we have been taking advantage of our Pass of All Passes which gets us into the water park, the fun centers, and the baseball games for free! We have also been making trips to the library a few times a week to participate in activities there and listen to storytime. Calvin loves picking out books and using the computers to check them out.

Today's activity was miniature golfing! He seemed have a hard time grasping that the clubs aren't hammers and that the balls are not really to be thrown, especially not into the surrounding bodies of water. It took some work, but he seemed to get the object of the game by hole 17.

He ran straight for the biggest puddle he could find.


Looking to see where his ball went after it entered the lighthouse.

Figuring it out!

Geek Pride

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Ok, so we are geeks. I know this. And I like being a geek. And I really like being a geek about LOST. And we like surrounding ourselves with other LOST geeks. Today, I went to a baby shower for one of my dearest friends who also happens to love LOST, and I couldn't help indulging in my geekiness and creating one of (I think) the coolest gifts any baby could receive. Behold: I made the onesies using some of the PhotoFabric paper that I used for Calvin's Halloween costume last year. I just printed the Dharma logo out and sewed it on! Very easy. I had some ideas to get really geeky and technical, like using the logo for the Staff station and writing "nursery" below it, pretending like they were Dharma-issued onesies that they would keep stocked in the maternity ward of the Staff station. I ended up deciding that just using the Swan station logo looked the coolest. I am very happy with how they turned out and think I am going to have to make some more of these for our new baby's arrival in September!

Innate

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Though I haven't been working, I have had more than enough things to keep myself busy. I was put in charge of planning the ward activity for March which was a Home Video Night, so collecting and compiling all of the video submissions kept me occupied throughout March. It turned out really great. It was really fun watching friends' videos from when they were younger.

Calvin has also been keeping me very busy. He is definitely becoming a 2-year-old. He talks so much now and repeats everything that you say to him. It's so funny to watch him figure out language. For example, one morning, he was holding my hands and jumping on the bed and I let go of him signaling that it was time to stop. He said, "One more time!" So we did it a little longer. When we stopped again, he said, "One more--" then though hard for a second, "--Six!! Six times!!" It was so funny to think that that was probably the biggest number he could think of.

He spends half of the day running around and jumping on everything, then the other half of the day begging to watch various movies. He is absolutely crazy about electronics, too. We try hard to limit his media usage, but he still has managed to find time to master various electronic devices. I seriously think children are born with these skills now. Here's him playing with the iPod: