Photo Wall Redo

Now that Caroline is 4 months old, it's time to add her pictures to the photo wall. I should have done this months ago, but I'm finding that once Annelise (the 2 1/2 year old) goes down for her nap, I would rather sit and do NOTHING than work on projects. Surely I'm not the only one who is exhausted by her toddler!

Here's our family photo wall before:

 Not too bad, but I wanted to add a collage frame with pics of the new baby, so some rearranging was in order.

Here's the entire wall looking toward the front door. (Sorry for the extreme afternoon sun. I took this while Annelise was napping.) This is pretty much just a hallway from the front door to the living room, so I couldn't get a straight-on picture.

 This is the new collage frame (from Hobby Lobby, of course!). More adorable pics from our newborn photo shoot. (Skyley Photography by Lori Smith - Houston area - find her on facebook).

Caroline's hospital portrait - 2 days old. These shaped frames seem to be all the rage right now, and Hobby Lobby has them! This one is 8x10, and I don't remember all the sizes they carry, but I know there were also 5x7s. There were a few shapes and colors to choose from.

 I had about 7 feet of wall to work with, but I wanted to leave a little room to add a couple of frames in the future. So I used about 6 feet by 3.5 feet on my dining table to lay out the frames until I was happy with the layout.

 Ready to go on the wall.

I went for a more linear layout this time. I love being able to walk past pictures of BOTH of my babies every day. Now we just need to have new family portraits made with all FOUR of us!

Happy crafting,

Julie

Ummm, I Had a Baby! (Is that a good excuse?)

Bless me, bloggers, for I have sinned. It's been 4 1/2 months since my last post. (Ha ha! No, I'm not Catholic.) So what's my penance? Instead of Hail Mary's, how about 8 Mod Podge projects? Hmmmm....

Well, I have a great excuse for not blogging. I had a baby. I know there are plenty of rock star moms out there who get posts up right after their baby is born. Well, I'm not a rock star - not even close! Who has time to craft, much less blog about crafts, with a newborn and a really energetic 2 1/2 year old? Not me - I'm worn out!

I've come to the conclusion in the last few days that my blog is called "Crafting When I CAN", not "All About Crafts." I can post about anything, right? And when I actually DO find myself having time for a craft project, I'll blog about that, too.

All right, on to the adorable baby pics. Here's a snapshot of my life for the last 4 1/2 months...

 So here I was on February 11, two days before my due date, Feb 13. On Friday, Feb 17, when NOTHING had happened yet, I went to the hospital to be induced. After 8 hours on Pitocin, I was not progressing enough, so my Dr. sent me home and told me to come back the next Tuesday. I had a great nursing team - some sweet, patient ladies - who told me they were back on duty Tuesday, and they might see me again. Yeah, so nothing happened over the weekend. I got lots of confused looks when I went to church that Sunday (when everyone assumed I'd still be in the hospital holding my bundle of joy).

So on Tuesday, Feb 21 (EIGHT days after my due date!), I went back to the hospital, got back on Pitocin, and started over (with my same fabulous nurses). This time, Caroline was finally ready to come into the world. I was in labor about 9 hours and pushed for literally 5 minutes. (With my 1st daughter, it was 13 hours of labor and 1 full hour of pushing!)

Here we are about 10 minutes after Caroline Rose was born.

She was 8 lbs. 1 oz. and 21 inches.

Day 2: Our 1st photo as a family of four! This was when Annelise came to meet her new little sister. The first thing she asked was if she could hold her!

 Caroline is like a little carbon copy of Annelise. I'm so glad digital pictures have date stamps, or years from now, I might not know which girl is in the picture. Especially since we're reusing all of Annelise's clothes!

March 14 - Ready for bed. I still thought Annelise was my little girl until I saw her next to her newborn sister. Wow! All of a sudden she seemed so big. Sniff, sniff.

April 8 - Easter Sunday. Poor Caroline had such a huge case of baby acne. It was all over her body when she was born, and stayed on her face until she was about 2 months old. I know it doesn't bother them a bit, but I still felt sorry for her.

April 26 - Caroline's 1st visit to the Houston Zoo. As she grows, I hope she will love it as much as Annelise does.

May 20 - The day of Caroline's dedication at church. (This was after church, which is why Annelise's hair is so messy. Those boys in the nursery always pull on her bows!) Their clothes don't always match, but it's just so darn cute when they do!

June 17 - This is one strong little girl. She gives herself tummy time! She's been holding her head up for a while, and started rolling over at about 3 months (1st roll was on my birthday!). She loves watching her big sister, and I can tell she just wants to get up and run after her NOW! Annelise hit most of her milestones a little earlier than her peers, and I think Caroline will beat her on all of them!

 March 21 - One month old. Little miss bright eyes showed off for her 1st photo shoot. A friend from church does beautiful photography - especially of kiddos - and came to our house for this shoot.

***If you like our pictures and live in the Houston area, please check out Skyley Photography by Lori Smith on facebook. She gave us all our retouched pics on a CD (about 22 shots) for a great price, and we can print them all we want. Her retouching was fabulous - remember I told you about the baby acne - can't see it at all!***

Hard work for such a little girl!

She slept through most of the shoot, but looked so cute doing it.

And she comes by those gorgeous baby blues quite naturally. Annelise has them, too! (No retouching needed!)

If you're still reading after all these pictures, don't hold my blogging absence against me. I have plans to get some crafting done soon. And if I don't have time for crafting, I'll just force you to look at more pics of my beautiful daughters! Until then...

Happy crafting,

Julie