diy play kitchen

So we knew we wanted to get Reese a play kitchen for Christmas, because she loves to play and pretend to make dinner. She especially likes to wash her hands (her Dr. daddy is so proud) when she finds little kitchens other places. We started searching for kitchens online and the ones we really wanted that we thought would stand the test of time with all the kiddos were just way too expensive and out of our small residency budget. (I mean have you seen this and this from pbkids? adorable!!) Anyway.... I saw THE cutest little kitchen ever on Pinterest and when I clicked on it, I found that they had made it themselves and had an awesome tutorial on how to do it. I ran this by my hubs and he LOVED the idea of building a special gift for his little princess. So we planned out the timeline of how he could actually do it with basically NO free time, except like one Saturday and when he gets home from work at 7pm after working a 12 hour day. I thought it was pretty insane and that maybe we should make it another time in our lives, like maybe for our grandkids when the Dr. finally has some time off.... but he was determined to build it.  And once he has set his mind to doing something there is no going back.  So.... he did it, and he did a GREAT job! 

HERE's the link to the tutorial we used to build it and here's more details from the awesome mom who actually built it at CraftingChicks.com (this was really helpful!!) They also have a little fridge that we decided we didn't have time (or a place to put it), but we'll probably build it at some point in the future. 

So we followed the materials list on the tutorial and bought pretty much everything at this store here called Menards (have you ever heard of it?... it's hilarious. They sell EVERYTHING from mattresses to lumber to groceries to toys to hardwood floors to paint. so funny. seriously a one stop shop) Since we were very crunched on time, I didn't really search that hard to find deals on many of the parts. We just went with whatever we could find, so I'm sure you could make this for even cheaper than we did if you found parts on sale or at thrift stores or even on craigslist like I had originally planned.

So, here we go.... 

Thanks to our dear friends who let us borrow some of their tools that we didn't have and thanks to Menards for having a sander on major sale so we could get one for ourselves. I just had to take a picture of Mark working in the garage at midnight still in his scrubs...what an awesome daddy. Reese, I don't think you'll ever know how much he loves you and would do anything for you!

starting to come together :) 

And the sink and the oven are both built! (on a side note, if you use the measurement from the websites mentioned earlier, the bottom shelf, middle shelf and top are TOO SHORT.  We had to take another trip for lumbar because Mark did all his cuts exactly as they say to on the '"cut list"and they were too short. The oven door gets a little tricky too and you should make sure to check your cuts and math about 10 times and be ready to sand and trim edges again just to get it to fit perfectly.)

So then it was my turn. I filled in all the nail holes (ps. you can make this without a nail gun but i'm pretty sure it would take FOREVER and would be much harder so if you plan to make one... get a nail gun or at least borrow one) then I sanded it all down (that was fun! i love our new sander, haha).

The next day my sweet friend, Kara, came over to watch Reese and Sam play while I painted in the garage with 35 degree weather. Reese, this was worth it for you, but otherwise I think I would have waited for a warmer day. My hands have never been so cold. I think I ended up doing two coats of primer and two coats of paint (and we only used half of a quart container). The paint color I picked was tropical holiday and I LOVE how it turned out.

the finished product on christmas eve:

more details:

SINK- We bought a small dog bowl from Petsmart for the sink ($4)

FAUCET: I wanted to find a used one or a cheap one somewhere but ran out of time so we ended up just buying a small one on sale at Menards for about $20

CURTAIN: used THIS tutorial - scroll down to where she talks about the curtain. I really loved the original one from the Crafting Chicks kitchen so I went to hobby lobby with a picture of it on my phone (and without Reese, I might add).  I literally laid out about 42 different fabrics and spent forever mixing and matching them to decide which ones went together best. Finally a sweet lady walked by and gave me some affirmation on the three I liked the best and that was all I needed to actually make a decision. Again, I originally planned to get fabric on clearance or use some I already had... but when it came down to it I decided to just get something I would really love looking at all day. So the fabric & trim probably cost around $18 (of course the ones I picked out were from the 'new spring fabric' and weren't on sale) and then we bought a mini tension rod for $3 (again from Menard's, did I already say that I love that place?)

BURNERS: 2 for $1 at hobby lobby. I got two small ones and two bigger ones and alternated them on top of the stove. I spray painted them silver. In retrospect I probably should have used a spray sealer or something over the spray paint because they've already gotten pretty scratched... but who's stove is actually clean and perfect looking... just makes it look more authentic, right :) We glued them on with epoxy glue.

KNOBS: Hobby Lobby $2 each. 

OVEN PULL: I think Mark found ours from Lowe's for $9.

SIDE HOOK: $3 from Hobby Lobby.

OVEN TRAY: $1 from Dollar Tree. It was the perfect size and I couldn't pass it up

POTS & PANS: Mark's sister, Anne Marie, got these for us from IKEA in Dallas and mailed them to us along with some of the play food. I wish we had one here because they have some awesome play food and kitchen tools for super cheap! spoons&utensils-$3.99, 4piece pots&pans-$9.99, play food breakfast set-$7.99

PLAY FOOD - Melissa and Doug. we got her a few little sets of play food that we actually found at Kohls for about 75% off.

TEA SET- disney princess set from a toy store at the mall.

I think the total cost to build the kitchen was around $130 and then we added a few little extras with the food and utensils, etc. I really think we could have easily done it for less than $100 if I would have tried harder though. In the end... the extra bit of money we spent was totally worth it because R loves her kitchen and plays with it everyday! Most importantly, it's such a special gift that she can always say 'my daddy built this for me' :) 

21 months

We went in for Reese's 21 month 'weigh in' last week and we're so proud of our peanut because she has finally entered the 10th percentile :) yippee! haha. She weighs 22.1 lbs and was 31.5 inches tall. We've somehow gotten into a really great routine of her drinking a whole zippy cup of milk right when she wakes up and before she goes to bed and sometimes after lunch/before nap. I contribute weight gain to that. oh and we switched to the organic whole milk yogurt. That could be helping too. She loves the tubes of yogurt... but only if I squeeze it onto a spoon and she feeds it to herself. She does eat meals and lots of different foods... she just eats like a bird. about three bites of each thing and then she's full, i guess. or just too busy with coloring or too worried about her stickers or her trains to sit in one place and eat for more than three minutes. I also think she's just about over her high chair. It's beginning to be a constant struggle to get her to sit in it and she just wants to be in the "big girl" chair. so we got her a cool booster seat that she loves and I think its making meal time a little less stressful for all of us!

Most everyone who meets her immediately says "she sure does talk a lot... how old is she??" I think mostly because she just looks so little compared to other kids her age... so its always surprising for people to see such a munchkin saying "mommy hold you" "mommy, reese turn big slide!" "swing fun!" "mon' on' (come on)mommy!" or just bursting out in song - like right now its pretty much always her favorite song "1, 2, 3, 4 chickens just back from the shore...." over and over (this song from sesame street) or winnie the pooh or jesus loves me (melts my heart every time) or she also likes this version of jesus loves the little children that says "red and yellow, black and white" over and over. She's really good at screaming that one when we go through the grocery store :) I've got to get that on video haha

Things I don't want to forget...

- she can jump on two feet!!! She just figured this out a few weeks ago and truly is so proud of herself

- can count to 12 on her own and sometimes even one-to-one correspondence to about 6

- can sing the whole abc song

- can recognize the numbers 4 (thanks to the song) and 7 (this was crazy to me... she saw a twisty tie on the floor at the grocery store that was bent in half and she looked down and pointed to it and said, 'number seven!' it did look exactly like a 7)

- she can recognize the letters: A, B, E, F, M, S(sometimes), R(sometimes), U

- she loves to cheer for baylor! every time any basketball game comes on she starts her cheer 'lets go baylor! lets go baylor' and she has learned how to do a real sic em :) love it!

- she can really focus on a task and will not move onto something else until that is finished... even if i try to bribe her haha. 

- she loves to color and is getting pretty good at trying to color a certain object 

- she can sort of draw a picture of a fish... weird. i guess she has just really studied the way i move my hand when I draw it and she copied it the other day and did it a few more times on the wall in the bathtub

- she can recognize a triangle, circle and square -thanks to the puzzle aimee gave her for christmas :)

- truly attached to her 'soft dd' (her blanket) we got her a new blankie for christmas that is made of bamboo so its a little (actually a lot) softer than her others (if that was possible) and she is now glued to it. she can't sleep with the other ones anymore... it has to be soft dd. oh brother.

- i have recently introduced her to veggie tales and she now loves this too!

- while shopping at the grocery store reese was 'driving' us in the big car shopping cart and i heard her all of a sudden start singing 'praise him praise him all you little children, God is love. God is love" oh my word. melt my heart.

- the child is OBSESSED with coloring. did i already say that?

- we have some full blown maaaajor temper tantrums going on these days. Lord please teach me how to disciple. gosh, this is hard. usually it is caused because i won't let her play on our bed and hide behind the pillows or because we have to put a diaper back on (is this a sign to start potty training?) or because we have to come inside or because she wants to drink apple juice and not water.

- loves to play pretend with her kitchen or with her Mater(from cars) plastic toys that sam gave her for christmas.

- favorite movies/tv shows: Cars, Bee Movie, Pooh, Elmo, Little Einsteins, WordWorld, Sid the Science Kid, Dora

I already wrote some of her favorite phrases but other things she says lately...

- "mommy, what happened?" 

- "oh weeese...." when she does something silly and then she'll laugh at herself

- "dat noise?" when she hears something loud or out of the ordinary (shout out to avery drake :)

- when we're in the car and she is ready to go home she just starts saying "home!!"

- it is just the most adorable thing how excited she gets when daddy gets home from work. she hears his car horn that goes off when he locks the car and immediately jumps up from what she was doing and RUNS to the door. then she tries to act all cool and show him EVERY single thing she's been doing and tells him about her day - hilarious. wish we could have an interpreter to figure out what she's says.. she talks a mile a minute and just keeps saying "hi daddy. daddy home!!"

- she tells me now when she has a dirty diaper and says "boopy biaper" in the cutest little whiny voice haha {in other news we may start thinking about potty training soon... in the next few weeks? maybe months... yikes. this scares me. please give me advice!!}

- when she wakes up she says "oh mommy...oh mommy... oh mommy" over and over and over until I go get her (if you've ever watched mickey mouse clubhouse she is saying it like they say 'oh toddles' haha so funny!! this morning she was saying 'oh mommy... wake up! oh mommy..... wake up!"
- she LOVES pooh bear. obsessed. she has coloring books, the movie (which is adorable and we watch it practically every day), lots of books, and of course the stuffed animal. its so cute how she says, 'hi pooh bear'
- she now says "mmhmm" like when you respond to something and instead of saying yes or ok she says 'mmmhmm' got to video that because its doesn't make sense to type
- she also still says "ohtay" in response too. pretty sure she has learned how to manipulate to get her way... a typical conversation goes like this:
     R: "reese watch pooh bear teebee (tv)"
     Me: to clarify what she's asking "you want to watch pooh?"
     R: "ohhhtay!!!!!! yay!!! bun!!!! (fun) " and now it seems that it was my idea to let her watch pooh and that I've already agreed to it. how does she already know how to do that? haha.

- she can sing the whole jesus loves me song and i about melt to the floor every time. sweetest little voice I've ever heard.

love you so much reesie boo. i couldn't feel more honored to be your mommy and have the awesome (and tiring) job of playing with you all day!

hide and seek

We've started trying to teach R how to play hide and seek with hiding her animals and then trying to find them. It is so adorable! We finally got part of it on video :) my favorite is how she "closes" her eyes!

has anybody seen reese?? :)

happy 2012

Happy New Year!

{better late than never, right!}

Reese and I got back from Baton Rouge on New Years Eve Day just in time for Mark to get off work and meet us at the Snyders to kick off 2012 together. 

love my sweet friend.

So I just read through my New Years Resolutions from last year {here} and felt like I did sorta accomplish them - or at least try to! Most of them I want to continue doing this year and will add a few... here we go.

- cook more 'real' meals {and by real I mean NOT just pulling out frozen chicken and leftover randomness and making a salad haha.}
- Begin teaching Reese how to memorize scripture (while also doing it myself!!) We listen to the cds Seeds of Encouragement and Seeds of Character in the car all the time {all the lyrics to the songs are scripture and they're fun kid songs} she's started trying to sing along and especially likes the one that says "think about such things... think about such things... true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy..." She sings the 'think about such things' part over and over throughout the day and gah lee what an awesome reminder to ME to think about those things all day!! I love it when I find myself singing it in my head too, when I'm doing laundry or cleaning dishes....
- pick up the house before Mark comes home - and by pick up I mean at least make a pathway where he can walk in the front door all the way to the kitchen haha
- maybe possibly have another baby :) or one on the way, Lord willing??!!
- post more videos on here of Reese! I have a billion of them (thanks to my last years resolution!) i just need to post them
- Truly go on one date night a month with my hubby!!!
- Finish reading 'Crazy Love' by March 1 - It's soooo good, I just have such a hard time sitting down to read
- FINISH reading at least one or two parenting books. I've started soooo many. I think the first one I will read is 'Parenting by Grace'
- Do my Beth Moore James bible study while Reese takes a nap every day before anything else!! why is this so hard to do??
- be wise in how we spend money

Jesus, we give you 2012 and pray you would be glorified in all we say and do and through us as a family! I pray you would give us wisdom as we listen and follow you through some pretty big things this year. We trust YOU and know you always provide for our every need and will never leave us or forsake us. Thank you for the promise of your Hope and Peace and that you fill us up with exactly what we need every morning. I pray you would show your mercies on our family this year and that we would draw nearer to you every day of the year. Amen

christmas recap

sorry i'm so super behind on blogging... i don't know if anyone else feels this way, but i feel like i need to document things in order and have a hard time posting new things when i haven't posted certain other things yet so then i just get really behind... anyway... here's a recap of our Christmas 2011.

Somehow Mark got four whole days off over Christmas which was an awesome Christmas miracle so we went to Branson to spend Christmas with my family. My brother came from Nashville too and we just had the best time, as usual, just playing at home and enjoying catching up and mostly playing with R. 

There was so much excitement on Christmas eve day that reeser just didn't want to take a nap so we went to the Christmas eve service at Church and then she crashed in the car on the way home before we could even eat dinner and eat the yummy birthday cake we made to celebrate Jesus' birthday. oh well. she'll understand it more next year anyway

we all had so much fun setting up all of reeser's present from santa. here's the loot she got from mark and I :) oh yeah, here's the surprise Mark and I built for her.... a play kitchen!! {I have a whole post going on how we made it so more on that later} but she loves it and we play with it every day. I think her favorite part is to pretend to wash her hands haha. 

Christmas morning... I think she really did get it much more than I thought she would on Christmas morning. When she came down the stairs and saw all the goodies out in the living room her face lit up and she just kept saying "ohhhh ohhhh yook!!! (look) ohhhh!!!" and then just stood there not sure what to go to first. so cute! my parents got her this fun barbie jeep from a friend and she loves to sit in it but is still super scared when it starts moving haha maybe this summer she'll love to ride in it

they also gave her a little train set which she LOVES!

mark has always (since he was a little boy) wanted his own bb gun so santa brought him one this year and the boys set out to shoot some squirrels or something :) funny.

the rest of the weekend looked like this: 

my mom got R a little gymnastics leotard!! we love it. (this is us reenacting a photo of me at her age in the exact same spot in my leotard) i'll have to find it.

the next day we planned to go to silver dollar city but it was cold and rainy so instead we stayed inside and played settlers of catan and then walked around on the landing and had dinner. Reese loved looking at all the HUGE fish at bass pro with papa joe

Tuesday afternoon we all split ways :( Mark drove back to Columbia to go back to work and Eric drove back to Nashville. Reese and I jumped in the car with my parents and got to go to Baton Rouge for a few days to be with my family there. It was such a treat to get to be with everyone and watch them all love on Reese. I just LOVE my family so much and couldn't be more blessed by them. (here's a four generation picture of all the girls)

my aunt found these red boots in my cousins closet and we think maybe they were erics and then he passed them down to taylor and now reese gets to wear them :) she loves them! i think bc she can put them on by herself

we absolutely loved the nice weather and had fun playing outside!

not a great picture but we love granny and papa!

 my sweet papa showing reese the neighbor dogs and teaching her how to pick satsumas off his tree in the back yard :) she LOVED them and ate about 20 while we were there

overall we had an AWESOME christmas and it was so fun to begin to teach reesieboo about the real meaning of christmas and why we celebrate it. i sure love starting our family traditions and continuing them year after year. we definitely missed seeing the mason side of the family :( It was so sad to have to mail presents back and forth. but we did FaceTime as we opened them on christmas morning and sent pictures back and forth the whole holiday. we are so thankful for such awesome family on both sides. couldn't be more blessed.

santa...

Kara and I took the kiddos to see Santa at Bass Pro before Christmas and it pretty much went exactly as I thought it would.... 

this is pretty much the worst/greatest photo all mixed in one. but let me tell you that in the moment i definitely felt like the worst mom ever as i laughed and took pictures while my daughter screamed her head off and EVERYONE around stared in fright. sorry reeser. i know you'll love santa someday.

they were all smiles when they sat in santas sleigh outside after being traumatized 

mark continued his tradition of giving little reese new christmas pjs to wear on christmas eve... but this year we wanted to include sam too :) so we did it a few nights early so we could celebrate with the snyders.

 (side note... every time we go to the snyders reese wants to get in this chair and take a picture with sam.)

merry christmas 2011

 love, the masons

photo from eric staples photography!!! {website coming}