What I'm Loving Wednesday!

I'm linking up again with Jamie for her blog party. Click here to see what other people are loving this Wednesday!

Today, I'm LOVING that we finally finished remodeling our upstairs bathroom! Here are the before and after pictures:

This was our bathtub before. The tiles were falling off the wall so for over a year now we have been taking showers with plastic hanging over the tile walls. Ghetto, I know. Those shower doors were disgusting as well. Rusty and covered with hard water spots. We removed those a long time ago and have just been using a plastic shower curtain liner.



This is the vanity. Sometimes, Tiffany blue just isn't a good thing! The floral print boarder near the ceiling was also a nice touch!



There was a wall of wallpaper next to the toilet. Can you say random? Also, the long wall to the right had the same wallpaper as well. And, who likes having carpet in a bathroom? Not me! Gross!



Here is one of our "work in progress" pictures. My husband loves to watch Holmes on Homes on HGTV, and the orange subflooring is a product that Holmes uses instead of using cement board prior to laying down ceramic tile. We are no strangers to laying tile (my hubby used to do it as a side job) but this was the first time he used this product. Since we had just painted the walls orange, it literally looked like the room was glowing. We thought it was pretty funny.



Ta-da! The finished product! Complete with new texture, paint, flooring, tub and shower surround, curtain rod, and towel rod!



This bathroom is upstairs, where three of our bedrooms are located. If a new family purchases this home and has a family of four, they could each have room for a towel on that super long towel bar. Want to know a secret? It's actually a curtain rod! (My husband's idea!) Also note the newly painted white doors! I'm slowly making progress on one of my goals for 2011.



This is our new toilet. It's elongaged, which is so comfy! ;) Also, we moved that cabinet from our kitchen into our bathroom, where it just makes much more sense. I painted that white and installed new hardware.



The vanity area looks much better! I painted the vanity and installed new hardware. We also installed a new countertop, faucet, towel holder, lighting, and decorative mirror.



Now that the bathroom is newly remodeled, what I'm also loving today is that my friend Bri is having a Celebrating Home party! Maybe I'll find some fun bathroom decor to purchase!

Happy Wednesday, ya'll!

My Hot Date!

We finally finished remodeling our master/upstairs bathroom (pics coming soon)! I told myself that as a reward, I would indulge myself in a nice relaxing hot bath. My husband is out of town for the weekend, so this was my hot date for the night!

I don't take baths very often (I'm more of a shower gal), but when I do, I like to do them right! We made this as our craft at the last MOPS meeting, and that was sometimes the only thing that got me through all the painting I had to do. I love treating myself to a reward after a job well done.



Here are the instructions to make your own Ginger Soak:
2 cups baking soda
1 cup Epson salts
2 Tablespoons ground ginger

I have heard of people soaking in tubs with baking soda and Epsom salts (Gwyneth Paltrow does it), but have never done it myself. About 30 minutes after my bath my skin felt pleasantly tingly. I'm not sure if that's normal, but I sure liked it and felt very refreshed afterward.

My companions in the bathroom were these two items:



Capped off by an episode of Sex in the City! I planned on having a mini SITC marathon, but I was so relaxed and tired after my bath I barely made it through one!


Once I finished watching my show, I sprayed some Deep Sleep pillow spray from The Body Shop onto my sheets, and I hit the sack and slept like a baby!

10 Months Old!

Since my last "month old" post was a few weeks late, it really feels like Parker reached the 10 months mark faster than he should have! He sure is a happy, beautiful baby boy. Unless, of course, I'm trying to get him to take a nap! ;)

Nap times are still an issue in my house. I'm already curious as to when the day will come that I'll be able to just put him in the crib, and he'll just fall asleep on his own. I've at least nipped the cradle swing, bouncing up and down motions I used to do. He just got too heavy, so now I just rock him and sing to him. One negative thing my little boy has learned to do is pinch though. This normally happens when I'm rocking him. And it's not a pinch with his thumb and finger. It's actually grabbing a wad of my skin and gripping it super hard. It hurts!

He is not sleeping through the night anymore, and I think teething may be to blame. I have stopped picking him up and rocking him though, now I can generally just lay him back down, pat him on the back for a little while, and he'll drift back to sleep. He does wake up anywhere from 3:00-5:00 for a nursing session.

I've added a few more foods to his menu: ham, turkey (which he gobbles up, ha, ha!), blueberries, and as far as "real" food goes, I have given him cheerios, yogurt, and bites of cheddar cheese! He also has begun drinking white grape juice (which I dilute with water).

He is quite the expert at climbing up stairs, which is why we now have baby gates galore. He also got his third and fourth teeth in, all within two days of each other, with another two fighting to make their debut very soon.

One thing I'm not too proud about is that he has learned how to throw a fit. This happens whenever I'm trying to either confine him to his high-chair, car seat, or changing table (he would much rather be crawling around exploring). He arches his back and stiffens up and lets out a wail/scream so loud you'd think I was doing some real bodily harm to him. I'm sure this is just the beginning.

I took him to the park and pushed him in a swing for the first time. He likes it, but only lasts in it for a few minutes before he's over it. Whenever we have a nice day, he really enjoys walks in his stroller.

Now that he's an expert at pulling up, he's working on cruising (walking holding on to furniture). His favorite activity is opening any door that has not been baby proofed and pulling all the contents onto the floor. He especially loves when I give him free reign in his nursery and he can pull all his books onto the floor.



He loves to be chased! If he is crawling on the floor and someone walks towards him and says, "I'm gonna get you!" he speed crawls away while squealing in delight. It's precious!

He is quite the independent boy and has no problem playing with a pile of toys all by himself.

I have to try my best to keep the floors clean because if there is a speck of who-knows-what on the floor, he will pick it up and chew on it. What's funny is he knows when he has something in his mouth that he shouldn't. If I try to get him so I can take it out, he speed crawls away from me, and then once I have him in my arms he's arching his back away from me. There is nothing too gross for Parker, either. Some items I have pulled out of his mouth include: carpet fibers, wood chips, rocks, paint chips, pine needles, Christmas tree needles, grout, leaves, dog food, and the list could go on and on.

He loves going into the bathroom and banging on the toilet and bath tub. Boys are strange!

I began brushing his teeth this past month. He LOVES it! I'm sure it feels good on his sore gums, plus the baby toothpaste is pretty tasty!

He got to experience playing in the snow for the first time! At first he fell back into the snow and just laid there with a content expression on his face. I'm not sure what was so interesting to him. Either the blue sky or the slightly cool feeling on his back. I love how the pictures turned out, except for my rookie photography mistake: I didn't have my back to the sun. Stupid shadows.





All was good until his hand fell out of his mitten and he got a fistful of the cold, wet substance. Needless to say tears followed and our snow experience lasted all of maybe five minutes.


I finally graduated Parker from his infant car seat to his convertible car seat.

He attended his first super bowl party.



I am 10 months old today! I weigh 19 pounds! Mommy has no idea how long I am because I won't lay still long enough for her to measure me!

Funniest. Picture. Ever. (in my opinion)

Apparently I should have changed the lyrics to "Teardrops on my guitar" to "Teardrops on Parkers walker"!

It could be worse....

I know I live a very charmed life when the downfalls of yesterday included:

* Realizing that corell plates are NOT shatterproof. In fact, a mere 3 foot fall will result in thousands of itty bitty shards of glass all over my kitchen floor and even on the top of my oven (How did that happen?)

* Parker caught his finger in the floor vent for the first time. Crying and bloodshed followed. Poor baby.

* Discovering that my DVR decided not to record the last 8 episodes of Sex in the City. I'm sooooo far behind now!

* I made my *delicious* homemade apricot cobbler from scratch for the second day in a row, only to have it once again turn out horribly. It was like a scrambled egg on top. No idea what I did wrong both days.

* Using the last of the apricots I froze this past spring and not being able to enjoy them.

At the end of the day, I told myself: It could be worse.

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I'm linking up with Jamie again for her Blog Party!


















I'm loving that we started remodeling our upstairs bathroom last week and are almost 90% finished. (8% of which is all the painting and finishing touches that I have to do. I really shouldn't be blogging right now!)

I'm loving that I got not one, but two new pairs of boots! Here's a pic of one of the pairs!


I'm loving that I bought my first pair of skinny jeans. Now I just hope they continue to stay in fashion for awhile!

I'm loving that when I opened my mail box today I had a hand written note from one of my besties!

What I love even more is that she'll know I'm talking about her when she reads this! (In case you think I get bombarded with decent snail mail on a regular basis, I'm talking about you, ADeidra!)

I'm loving that yesterday a woman from L.A. bought one of my slinky bracelets!!!! (Order yours at www.blingonastring.etsy.com) I'm going Hollywood, baby!

I'm loving that tonight is the season finale of Live To Dance!

Happy Wednesday, ya'll!