My little princess no more...bedroom transformation

Since my new camera is in the shop this week (add it to the list of broken things around here) I couldn't take pictures of us in daily life or going to the skating rink with Ashley's friend Jenna and Jacob Rosser (for his first time). So no dog antics, silly poses or recipes shared...instead I'll post something that's been sitting in the wings for awhile. 

This post will be about the annihilation of my carefully crafted Princess room that I was so proud to create for my one and only girl... who now declares she doesn't want to be a "girly girl"

She loved it as we were creating her Princess room but my ego was pretty busted when a couple of months later Ashley begged "Can we paint it blue now??"

"NO! We can't paint it blue I just painted a wall mural for you!" 

(not to mention the hand crafted comforter, curtains and accessories that went with her princess theme!!)

So I ignored the fact that Ashley' really wanted a blue room for as many years as I could and I told her to enjoy the room she had...

When she started getting old enough to be embarrassed about having friends see her pink princess room  (she would make me close her door when people were over) I decided to hand the Keys to the Kingdom over to Ashley and let her have the room she wanted. 

So TA DA...here is her new blue, beachy room 

(well it's really aqua which I thought was a good compromise)

Gone are her cute dresses that she had when she was a baby...her blessing dress, first church dress and first Easter dress....how sweet...

Now she has pictures of local beaches and some of our beach trips from this last Summer. 

Cousins and friends who went with us are represented.

(Oh since I didn't know if we were moving or not the "paintings" on the wall are actually painted contact paper cut out and put on like wall stickers)

Gone is the wall mural that I would make up bedtime stories about....the little girl was always princess Ashley in her castle and the witch was locked in the tower on the side...a good dragon lives in there too somewhere. 

Since I didn't want to paint on the wall in case we moved I got this plywood surfboard left over from the LPA convention this summer and decided to paint it. 

I painted it per Ashley's instructions...

Instead of a princess coming out of her castle she is now a Surfer Girl writing in the sand....wearing her favorite bathing suit of course.

The puffy pink curtains and hand made bedspread....

Have been replaced (though I still found a use for a bit of the tulle)

I loved that the starfish on the curtains was actually a Christmas tree garland that I got at Kohls all strung up already and just the right length!

I loved her old bedspread...

She even helped me decorate some of the squares!

But Ashley seems much happier with the blue store bought version...so I had to get over it ;)

What to do with a pink pearly lamp???

Why paint over it and add shells from Hawaii instead of ribbon!

The mirror that was gold and pink got a paint job as well.

Finished product...

I guess it was time to box up the baby shoes, Kindergarten graduation picture and dance medals.

I'm finding that watching your kids growing up is pretty bittersweet.

Though Ashley might not be my little princess any more I'll probably be just as sad when she grows out of this phase 

Jeff and I are learning that parenting is pretty much a roller coaster, I'm grateful to have him by my side because all you can do sometimes is hold on tight and try and enjoy the ride!

Happy Hearts Day!!

Happy Heart's Day from our house to yours...hope your family had a great one....

and you are getting lots of good deals on all that clearance chocolate today :) 

So last week I was slammed with doctor's appointments, service, a lovely trip to the temple and lunch with sister-in-laws followed by bringing dinner to the Bullocks and holding triplets for an hour (she amazes me how she handles her 7 kids with calmness and peace). I drove all over, seemed to be occupied every minute of the day and pretty much crashed a bit on Friday...sadly I didn't take pictures of it all.

I should've taken pictures of the temple, triplets and the giant, wonderful baby shower for Erin Elsworth! She probably had 50 plus people there and was opening presents for probably 2 hours! Oh and I should've take the picture of the quilt I was hurriedly buying material for and making for Miles her new baby, and the cute church outfit I found to buy for him! Well you'll just have to imagine it! 

I do have a few pictures though...

Jeff and I have season tickets to performances at our local community college and got to go with 2 couples to see My Fair Lady recently. We entered one of those drawings that you never win...and we won!

Regardless of the fact that most of the basket contained things related to drinking...we got 2 tickets to the Gourmet Detective which is a mystery/dinner theater... can't wait to book a time to go. 

On Saturday we had one of those days where Jeff and I kept passing each other. Luckily I got up early because I had our tree trimming guy knocking on our door at 8:00 ready to trim trees (Jeff forgot he was coming and I never knew it) He must of thought we were crazy as we were both driving back and forth home, and not home all day. 

 I got Ashley to her Primary Pancake breakfast at 9:00 and helped cut pancakes for kids for 45 minutes or so before I ran over to do grocery shopping. Jeff was out doing his own errands as I dropping off the food at the house and then ran back to pick up Ashley. Then I dropped off Ashley and had her send out  Taylor so I could get him to his birthday Party. I got home and Jacob and Jeff were walking out the door to go to the temple with the youth. As they left Ashley had a friend over, and I took them to the park, tried to keep the pets away from her friend (she's afraid of them all) and helped Taylor put mom and dad chinchillas back together...maybe in 3-4 months we might have another litter :/

Then Jeff raced home with Jacob, Ashley's friend got picked up and we had 10 minutes to be ready to go to a Birthday/Retirement party for one of Jeff's clients and former ward member. 

What do you get a guy that is turning 60 and probably has everything??? We got him this candy bouquet.

It actually ended up being a fun night despite the crazy day. It was a catered Luau with good food and dancing for entertainment. We also got to see a lot of people we haven't seen in a long time. 

Monday was Valentine prep! I can't stand buying generic valentine's at the store...so I always try and come up with my own. These were Ashley's Valentine's this year. 

Ashley doesn't care too much what they look like but her teacher thought they were pretty clever. :)

I spent the day baking sugar cookies (very nice thanks to my Kitchen-Aid) and frosting them and making cards....

stressing out to get the cards in the mail before the mailman came....I meant to get some out to grandparents too out but it didn't happen. I'll have to get them another time!  

I decided to do a Valentine's dinner with the family on Monday because Jeff and I were going out on Tuesday...so heart shaped pizzas were on the menu!

For family night we dropped off cookies.

Valentine's Day was a great day...Goodies from neighbors and friends...I got to talk to some friends on the phone and I got to help in Ashley's classroom for her party. 

I made up a game to play during the party...

I had some big fuzzy dice and they rolled one to choose a color...(red, black, pink....)

and one to choose a category...(things that start with S, things in the classroom....)

Then they had 2 minutes to write down a list of the most things they could think of that fit in the color and category. They had to think about it at first... but they ended up having fun once they got the hang of it. 

We only had time for 2 rounds but the teacher liked it so much she wanted to keep it so she could play it next week.

I love helping in her class because I get to be the "fun" person. I don't have to worry about the day to day. I even got a couple extra valentine's given to me from the kids. :)

My sweet hubby got me balloons, a nice card and this giant box of chocolates...

I'm willing to share if anyone wants some so I don't eat these all by myself!

He also got the ball rolling on getting my wedding ring sized. For the last 3 months or so I haven't been able to wear it...I guess after almost 19 years it's time to size it up. There's been a few times I feel stupid for not wearing a ring so I'm glad to finally get it fixed. 

(I was glad when I went to the jewelers he said it only needed to go up a 1/2 size...I guess that's not too bad.)  

That night for dinner Jeff and I went to Outback...what you don't see is all the other couples with us. We went with like 10 other people. We laughed, talked about our callings, our kids and made fun of chick flick movies...including Twilight (hee hee).  Great food and a fun night!

I have to say my absolute favorite part of Valentines day was when I found the one and only Valentine from our children... 

Ashley made a pop-up Valentine completely on her own including chocolate from her private stash and left it on our bed to find. 

She's a girl after my own heart!!!

Hope everyone had a great day too.

Palm Springs weekend

This Saturday was Jeff's yearly kick-off dinner and awards meeting. Every year we go but only a couple of times have we actually stayed at the hotel where it was being hosted. 

This year it was in Palm Springs so we thought we'd take the family and have fun for the day and then go to our event that night. 

We decided to take the kids on the Palm Springs Aerial Tram.

It's been years since I've been there and the kids have never gone. 

The day was cool but not windy which was perfect. 

I heard about some hikers getting stuck overnight at the top a couple of weeks ago because they closed the tram early due to wind....I didn't tell the kids about that one ;)

Waiting to get on. We all brought gloves and jackets because we knew it would be a lot colder at the top. Ashley was wearing long sleeves and had me carrying a sweatshirt, jacket, scarf, gloves and hat....luckily she let me leave her snow pants in the car!

The price has gone up quite a bit since the last time I've been there but I guess they've changed the car, it's bigger and rotates as you go up so you get a view from all sides. 

It's a long way up...

 

and a long way down!

We figured well if we fall, we die...we tried not to think about it (hee hee).

Great view at the top.

At the top with Ashley bundled up like a snowman....it was cold but not thaaat cold...she shed her jacket pretty quick and guess who got to hold it. 

There was frozen snow at the top. It wasn't fresh enough to play in it but it was frozen enough to skate on it. 

At first Jeff was telling the kids to "get off of it" and "be careful you're going to fall"....then I said "so what if they fall" It was flat and they were having fun. He realized it wasn't a big deal but he remembered running and sliding on ice when he was young and cracking his head on it. No one fell but there was no running and sliding either :) 

Taylor and I hiked a bit farther than the rest of the family to see a couple of the lookout spots. Taylor loves "bouldering" he calls it....basically just climbing up boulders. 

At the second lookout he wanted to climb higher to get a better view...thats him the little dot on top of the rock in the distance. 

You can see him a little better here but he's crouched down. When he got to the edge he realized how far it dropped off  he said it was pretty sketchy. 

Ashley ready to go back down and hit the hotel.

The trip back down was uneventful until about 1/2 down...then Taylor started having problems with his sinuses and felt like his teeth were going to fall out and his eye pop out. 

We gave Jacob a benadryl before we went up because his ears have been plugged from a cold, but Taylor's ears were fine but his sinuses gave him a lot of trouble. Crazy...we came down and after a couple of Benadryl for him and some time he seemed to be better. 

That night Jeff and I dressed up for his black tie, masquerade dinner. I've had this outfit for a number of years and I wear it over and over to his formal stuff. 

Right before we are walking out the door I bent over to get something and the zipper up the back of my shirt completely popped open. I guess I wore it one too many times. 

The pizza guy for the kids came just as this happened so I took pizzas and paid him without turning around and then frantically tried to see what I could do to fix it. 

I got the zipper aligned and back together but the whole night I sat up straight and made sure not to pull on it.  Wheeeeew I was just glad to get through the night intact. I guess it's time to get something else now.

Our flash on the camera died (just add it to the list of broken things around here) so we got this one blurry picture of the Parkers, the Gunnells were there too and it was nice to hang out with them. 

Oh I almost forgot the emcee was giving away the centerpieces that were on the tables. The people that won them had to have the item that he called out....like 12 credit cards in your wallet....wearing a Rolex watch (not us)...have a picture of  your mother-in-law. It was like a scavenger hunt...but we didn't have our wallets or purses so we didn't have any of the stuff he was asking for. 

Finally its the very last center piece and the guy asks for anyone that has anything Disney. 

There is a pause for a second and then Jeff yells out

"I've got one of the 7 dwarfs!!"

It caught him off guard, everyone laughed, and Jeff got the last centerpiece. 

He also was called up 4 times to receive awards including top 5 in the office. 

For years we used to come to these parties and watch everyone else get awards...now it's nice for me to come and see Jeff get them. All that hard work paying off!

Having 5 people and 2 beds ends up with a dilemma every time in hotels. Ashley has been relegated to sleeping at the foot of our bed.  It works pretty good as long as the beds are about a queen size....these weren't queens. 

She woke up early in the morning with her head 1/2 off the bed and complaining of a head ache, I let her come up in between us...you can see how much room that left Jeff and I ;)