Still Alive

Hey guys!

It's been over a month without a peep from me, so I thought I'd let you guys know that I'm still here.  We've actually got a few house projects that we're working on, but things go quite a bit slower these days with Kalia around.

I got quite a few emails and comments from you guys when I was pregnant about not knowing how I was doing everything and something or another about being a super woman.  Well, I'm here to tell you I am most definitely not a super woman.  I'm a new mommy, and I spend my days figuring out my baby.  Initially, I felt the need to still get a lot of house projects done.  I felt that I wasn't being 'me' without it.  It kind of put me in a sad place, so we did the vanity to give me a little bit of sanity.

But somewhere along the way I realized something.  I'm a go-getter, I'm a do-er...I don't rest that much, and my idea of relaxing is playing volleyball or running.  I don't stop.  I'm committed to doing things the best I can, I love to learn, and I love to be hands on with things.  I love to be active, I love to create, I love to inspire, and I love to finish every day proud of what I've done.  That's 'me'.

And these days, I get all of that, and so much more with this little girl :

She's 'me'.  Her and her Daddy fill my days with so much joy and happiness...I can't even begin to describe it.

I had motherhood all wrong before she arrived.  I thought I'd teach her the ways of the world, I'd teach her how to be a good person, how to do the basics initially, and how to succeed in life later on.  What I didn't realize was how much she'd teach me.  In 10 short weeks, she's taught me to see the world differently.  She's taught me that I have a whole lot more patience than I ever thought I could...she's taught me to be empathetic to other Mommies...she's taught me that the best things in life lie in those little eyes and those little dimples.  She's taught me how to love more openly and completely.  She's taught me how to be a better me, and she's teaching me new things every day.

So please forgive the lack of diy posts.  Right now, Kalia's not at the age where she can participate in diying too much (although it's hard not to write posts on every little thing that she does do...but I spare you guys and have a family blog just for that :-)), and until she gets there, my diying is limited to naptimes and after bedtime.  House projects can wait until then...I've got more important things to learn and grow from in the meantime...

I hope all of you guys have enjoyed your summer and are doing well!  Thanks for sticking around Kara's Korner, I really appreciate your support.

I'll end on one last one of my little cutie.  Enjoy!

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Happy 4th of July!!!

From the cutest girl in the entire world...

I might be a little biased :-).

How 'bout from our family to yours...

Kodi had a tennis ball in the pool that he was a little more interested in.  He normally doesn't miss a good photo op!

Hope everyone's enjoying their day!

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Coming Up for Air

Hey guys!

I know it's been quite awhile since my last post...but little Miss Kalia is keeping me quite the zombie these days.  I think I've been on the computer a handful of times since we've gotten home.

One of my big concerns prior to having Kalia was breastfeeding.  I really really wanted to be successful at it, and was worried that I might not be.  Well, Kalia is already taking after her Mommy and Daddy in that aspect and is quite the over-achiever.  She feeds about every hour to hour and a half, which doesn't leave me much time to get any sort of restful sleep at all.  Which means I'm a zombie all day / all night long.

One of my neighbors put it best...we're in survival mode right now.  Chris feeds me and Kodi, and I feed Kalia.  We've managed to go on our nightly walks almost every night the past week, which even though it takes away from sleep time, is helping me keep my sanity around these parts.

I actually do have some projects to post that I finished up prior to little miss Piggy getting here, but I just haven't been able to get on here for any significant amount of time.  I can start pumping next week, so Chris is going to take over one of my night time feedings, and let me get more than 1 hour of sleep at a time.  Woot!  Hopefully I'll start to feel like the 'old me' energy wise again at some point.

Every day is a blessing, every day is rewarding, every day is a challenge, and every day I'm thankful.

Oh, and as a side note...breasts for breastfeeding are so poorly engineered.  I can tell they were made by a man.  There is absolutely no reason for both faucets to turn on when you latch onto one.  What a bad design!

Anywho...

'Till then, hope these cute photos will tide you guys over!

1 week birthday walk...we were finally allowed outside!  Kalia is so funny with her hands!

Just have to make a note that the camera is on a fence post on a self-timer for this photo.  How Kodi knows where and when to smile is beyond me.  He's part human I think!

Go Gators!!  Kalia's Uncle Shawn and Aunt Christina really really love Kalia.  They're Seminole fans, and this headband is from them.  Now that's love!

Daddy moment...Kalia loves him so much already.  See her hugging him?!  Chris is amazing with her!

Awww...the swing and the bouncer were two of the best gifts ever!!

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Nursery Room - Monogram

This is the last nursery project I plan on doing before Kalia gets here.  I actually didn't really plan on having to get it done before she arrived, but since she's showing up fashionably late, the last and final project is complete.  Sort of.  I'm still working on sewing her quilt, but right now my sewing machine and I aren't on speaking terms, so that one most definitely will wait until after she gets here.  Hopefully before her first birthday!  (Kidding...sort of).

For above Kalia's crib, I wanted some of our maternity pictures displayed.  I initially planned on just doing some sort of canvas or frames, but after doing the gallery wall above the dresser, I decided I needed something a little bit different for above the crib.  I walked in and out of there about 1000 times, and finally came up with something that I thought I'd like...decoupaging our maternity pictures to a big huge K.

We have at of scrap wood left over from various build projects, so this project was pretty close to free.  Actually, it cost $5 for the spray paint and pictures.

First up, I drew out my K on a leftover sheet of 3/4'' plywood.  I couldn't decide if I wanted 5 x 7's or 4 x 6's, but after laying out both sizes, the 5 x 7  K was just too big.  I do kind of wish I would've made this so the arms of the K were the same size as the body, but I still like the final outcome.

Chris came into the garage at some point during this, and agreed to make my cuts for me with the jig saw.  I don't fit behind tools anymore, so I either have to bend over waaaay low to get things below my belly, or just pass the task of to Chris.

After Chris made the cuts while I held the board in place, we were left with a huge giant K.

I spray painted that black (while wearing my awesome mask), and then got up in the middle of the night to decoupage our maternity pictures to it.  Sleep is getting harder and harder these days, so I moreso just nap a lot.  My weekends consist of : nap, project, errands, eat, repeat.  Anywho, I don't have pictures of the giant K just spray painted, but just imagine the image above black.

After the decoupage, here's what my K looked like :

I decided the ends needed a little bit ... more ... to it, so I cut out circles of fabric and added fabric type flowers.  It added a feminine touch without being too girlie.  These two fabrics are leftovers from her quilt too, so once I start speaking to my sewing machine again, this will tie in perfectly.

The centers are just pins that I snapped off and then bent into place.  I glued them down using quick grip, and then attached the flower with quick grip to my K, but only where the pins were.   That way I could still ruffle the 'petals' of my flower to have more of a 3D look.

Chris came in and thought the middle of the K needed flowers too, so I made a few smaller blue ones while I was at it.

We put the hangers in the back of it, and hung it above her crib.  Here's the final product :

What do you think?  Too big, too small, or just right?  I debated about painting the K another color besides black, because I do love color in a nursery...but ultimately decided the pictures would look better against a black background.  I also decided the black background went with her crib skirt and crib a little bit better, but I'm still on the fence about whether or not I'm going to add color back in.

Here's how it ties in with her crib :

When she gets big enough to pull things off the wall, we'll either have to put a screw through this, remove it, or pull the crib away from the wall so she doesn't pull it down on herself.  For now, I'm just ready for her to be here already!  Oh, and ignore the wrinkly sheet and bedskirt.  The last thing I feel like doing is ironing these days!

And my favorite part...here's where we started with this wall :

And after a ton of work, here's what it looks like now :

Installed bamboo floors, painted walls and closet, new crib, custom built in closet system, custom built dresser

(To see my documented projects and paint colors I've used on this section, click on any of the links below the picture.)

So that's it...my last and final nursery project.  Maybe Kalia was waiting for me to finish that up before deciding to show up.  I'm done, she can come now!!  I'll do a full nursery tour and recap everything sometime soon.  Unless Kalia shows up...then I'll go MIA for a little while before sharing her with you guys, and then do a full nursery room tour!  :-)

Believe it or not, we had a busy busy Friday and Saturday.  I've got another room that we gave a mini face-lift to show you guys later on in the week, so stay tuned!

Hope everyone's enjoying their Memorial Day today!  Happy Monday!

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Nursery Room - DIY Wall Art

I really wanted something big and personal to balance out the mirror above Kalia's dresser.  I wanted to incorporate Chris and I's baby pictures, and add Kalia's pictures inbetween ours when she gets here so we can have fun comparing.

I actually am starting to get pretty tired these days, so I initially bought two 16 x 20 picture frames to do this with, and then my frugal side kicked in and I decided it was absurd to spend $40 on frames that I didn't love (on sale with a coupon at Jo-Ann's) instead of spending $4 on wood to just make frames that I did love.

So, I got out the miter saw and built myself two 16 x 20 frames (for a tutorial on how to build picture frames, click here), and spray painted them black.  No pictures of this, but there's a million pictures of picture frames around my blog if you really want to see any!

After the picture frames were built and spray painted, I laid out the pictures I wanted in the frame, and measured where I wanted my rope to go to hang the pictures from to get the proper length.

I glued the rope on the back of the picture frame, which is why you see the wood in the picture above.  I waited to glue the rope until after Chris seared the edges of the rope to ensure that the edges wouldn't fray.

I'm pretty sure the glue would've just done the trick (I used quick grip), but my pyromaniac husband insisted on doing it this way!

After the ends were seared, we added the fabric to the back.  We both held on pretty tight to opposite ends and I pulled and stapled along the backside.

We didn't cut the fabric off on the opposite side until after we stapled everything together.  That way we didn't accidentally short change ourselves!

You can see the staples if you look closely.  I guess this was a 'posed' picture...the scissors aren't doing much here, but you get the idea!

Here's what she looked like from the front.

Almost done...next up was to spray paint the baby clothes pins I got at Jo-Anns from wood...

to white ...

and then add the pictures, and wala!

Custom, personalized wall art for the nursery for less than 10 buck-a-roos for both picture frames.  Not bad, eh?  I found the fabric at Jo-Ann's too...it matches the hue of pink I have going on in Kalia's room perfectly!

I repeated all of that for the second picture frame.

Unless Kalia's blessed with some sort of miracle, she is going to be a bald, bald baby!!  Look at those baby pictures and how bald both Chris and I were!!  And what a chunky monkey I was too!  Here's a few close-ups...

Chunky and bald me!

Bald baby Chris!  At least he was a boy though!!  Everyone thought I was a boy for the longest time!

Stay tuned to see how this ties in with the mirror!  Happy Wednesday!

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Maternity Pictures

For my birthday again this year, Erin gave me the gift of maternity pictures. I thought I'd share with you guys a few of my favorite. Erin's so talented...it's such a special gift to give me, and I'm so thankful she took the time to do these for us!

Here I am at my 31 week mark...

The two things I've missed the most with being pregnant are running and volleyball.  Chris and I love to play volleyball together, so this was a fun picture to take that captures 'us' so well!

Funny though...I still think Chris is slacking on keeping up his end of the weight gain even with carrying his volleyball!!  Mine's still bigger!

And finally, here's one of my favorites from Chris and I at the park.

Thanks so much Erin for taking the time to do this for us...such a special friend to capture such a special time in our lives!!

For those of you that are into stats, I had another ultra sound yesterday.  She's already weighing in at a whopping 5 lbs and 12 ounces...with a little more than 5 weeks to go!!  She looks healthy and happy, and we couldn't be more excited for her to get here...hopefully sooner than later!!

Hope everyone has a great Easter weekend!

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Biggest Project Reveal Yet!

Hi guys!!

After three weeks of a blogging break, I'm back.  Before I get to the big project reveal, I have a few things to share...

First up - the real reason I went on a bloggy break is because we went on vacation.  For four weeks.  Yep, that's right, an entire month of vacation.  Since we weren't going to be home for that long, I opted to keep it a secret just in case I have any crazy stalkers.  I'm pretty sure the only person who stalks me is my handsome hubby, and that's completely fine by me, but still...ya never know!  (I pre-posted my last three posts prior to leaving.)

So, where'd we go for a month?!  Hawaii!!!

Kauai, HI

One of my best friends lives out there, and is awesomely amazing and offered to let us stay with her for an entire month!!  Our timing was impeccable...my friend closed on her home the morning we left, and is moving back to the mainland on Friday.  Because she was leaving the island, she only had a few of the essentials, and kept saying she couldn't wait to read a blog post on her 'amenities'...

So here goes ...

We were so fortunate to have one pot and one skillet to cook with.  While this might seem scarce to some, it was a perfect way to plan our meals, and it was so much easier to clean just one pot and just one skillet.

We were so fortunate to have 4 knives, 4 spoons, and 4 forks to eat with, even if they were dollar store bendy silverware.  They provided great entertainment for mixing stuff, much laughter when we bent our silverware back in place, and made us appreciate the next item all that much more!

We were so fortunate to have one good butter knife.  Those things are amazingly strong.  They can cut fruit and chicken and potatoes without flinching.  Well, a good butter knife and a strong hubby.  The strong hubby might be key to that equation, but I will never again under-estimate the power of my butter knives.

We were so fortunate to have paper plates to eat off of.  It was so nice being able to throw our plates in the garbage, and made cleaning up after dinner every night that much easier.

We were so fortunate to have a bed, even if it was made of air, to sleep on.  It was one of the most comfortable air mattresses ever, and we slept like babies.  I'll get more into why this was so comfortable in a bit.

We were so fortunate to have a friend that we can hold great conversations with, days on end, hours at a time and only stop chatting because it's way past our bedtime.  The conversations we enjoyed without the interruption of TV and internet (she has no cable) were great, in-depth, intelligent, fun, and heart warming conversations that bonded all three of us that much closer.  We will forever cherish that time we all had together.

Here's a few pics from the millions that I took :

Hawaiian Monk Seal on Waikiki Beach, Oahu, HI

Sea turtle off of the Ho'okipa Beach Rocks in Maui, HI

Chris and I at the falls at the end of the Pipiwai Trail in Maui, HI

Poipu Beach Area in Kauai, HI

Seven Sacred Pools in Maui, HI

Red Sands Beach in Maui, HI

Haleakala Crater in Maui, HI

Hanauma Bay in Oahu, HI

So now that I've filled you in on our wonderful vacation, which included wonderful and amazing trips over to the islands of Maui and Kauai, both of which we could afford to do because of our generous friend that we're so fortunate to have on the island of Oahu, I'll get onto the next item of business.

Chris is DONE.  D.O.N.E. DONE with school.  WOO HOO!!!!  He worked so hard for his Master's, put in so much blood, sweat, and tears (okay, maybe not blood...but I bled for the both of us on some of these solo home improvement projects, so that counts for him too), and I couldn't be more proud.  He didn't walk with his class, he decided he'd rather be walking in Hawaii than in Gainesville, FL ... but the sense of accomplishment and pride and joy and relief is all there!!

And finally ... the big project reveal.

A pictures worth a thousand words, so here it is :

Yep, that's me at 20 weeks pregnant (and Chris being a goof)!  This was taken on our last full night in Hawaii.  We couldn't be more excited, elated, scared, and happy all at the same time!  If you go back to September, you'll notice that my posts start dwindling down quite a bit.  Morning sickness and the pure tiredness of the first trimester hit me pretty hard.  I had a few 'do over' days where I didn't get out of bed at all and decided that I'd just try again tomorrow because today wasn't a good day.

That's all over though...I'm feeling amazing, overwhelmed, and big!!!  The amazing part might have something to do with being gone for a month in Hawaii, but nonetheless!  Oh, and the air mattress that we slept on was amazingly comfortable because it absorbed some of my new found belly so I could enjoy sleeping semi on my stomach for a few extra weeks.  I'm still trying to figure out this side sleeping thing!

Sorry I waited so long to tell you bloggy world!!  I actually just officially made the announcement today at work, and I have no idea who reads this blog, so I waited to say anything until I let the cat out of the bag.

The main deets that everyone will want to know...my due date is May 30th, 2011, and we find out Saturday morning if it's a boy or a girl!  Do you have any guesses of boy or girl based on the way I'm carrying?!  I have no idea...this whole first time Mommy / pregnant thing is all new to me, so I'm not guessing!  We'll find out soon enough!!

Oh, and... HAPPY 1 year bloggy anniversary to Kara's Korner!!!  I can't believe how much this has grown over the past year, and I hope to continue and build on how far I've come thus far.  We've got so many projects on our to-do list, that we can accomplish TOGETHER now that Chris is done with school.  And yes, that includes a nursery!!  So make sure you stay tuned to see what this year's fun projects have in store!

Hope everyone's 2011 is going well!  Our's so far is awesome!

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