Monday, June 22, 2015

My NC Home.

So, basically this is just embarrassing. The last time I blogged was for the birth of Claire who is barreling toward 2 1/2 years old. I lack time... mostly.

Anyway. Another big life change, another reason to finally blog. For posterity's sake, of course...

After spending nearly three wonderful years in Maryland, where we welcomed two beautiful daughters, we moved. Josh was accepted into the Endodontic Residency for the US Army and assigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Our report date was June 1st which means that we are finally all unpacked and it is now time for the traditional "We've moved!"-blog.

Without further ado: Pictures!


Master Bedroom. 
If you're friends with me on Facebook, you've already basically seen this one, 
but because I LOVE my bed, you get to see it again... 


Entryway.
 I like it. And I like the bench Josh made for me. 


Front Door/Entryway.
 Is anyone else as obsessed about transom windows as I am?


Dining Room.
 Haven't decided what to do with the silhouettes on the wall yet. 
Still think it looks naked but giving it time to percolate. 


Dining Nook.
 Nothing to explain.


Kitchen 1.
 The water doesn't taste like mold and the dishwasher is super quiet. 
I'm in love.


Kitchen 2. 
A microwave that doesn't pop the breaker every 3rd time I use it and an oven that heats predictably. 
It's really the simple things in life...


Living Room 1. 
Now this is the exciting part. After watching children ravage my sofa for the last 11 years, I got new furniture!! 
If you're in the market, COCOCO Home is great for your custom furniture needs. 
(Save for the ottoman... Josh and I built that.)


Living Room 2.
With a gas fireplace. Seriously, can not wait for winter.


Living Room 3/Kitchen 3.
Kind of unnecessary to have three pictures of my living room, but I am in love with my furniture... 
Apparently my phone takes really blurry pictures. Sorry.


Stairs/Entry Way.
My "Home Is Where the Heart Is"-project finally has a home!


House.
Again, if you're my friend on Facebook then you've already seen this. 
But, yeah, that's my house and I'm pretty excited about it.


The Bunk House.
Or that's what I'm calling the boys' room... 
wonder when they're going to get old enough to want separate bedrooms...?

Well, that's the end of this tour. Things I didn't include:

1) The girl's room. It hasn't been decorated for the two of them yet, 
so (hopefully) that'll be a separate post not too long from now... 
2) Bathrooms. Because.
3) The office. It's ALWAYS Card Season, but... if you look back at "Living Room 1." you can see it. 
It has amazing built-ins. The owner does some pretty awesome custom work...
4) The guest room. We don't have any furniture in it yet. But don't fear, future guests! It's on the to-do list!
5) The Laundry Room. I spend too much time in there as it is.

*Desperately missing the Susquehanna Ward. Just had to add that. Because it's true. 

My Baby

"A daughter is the happy memories of the past, 
the joyful moments of the present, 
and the hope and promise of the future."

Paige Christine D'Arbra Gailey
-welcomed-
at 12:17 pm on the 6th of April, 2015.


All 7 lbs. 13 oz. 20 inches
Adored by:


Oh, and her parents.


Surprising us at 4:30 in the morning, the day after Easter, despite a scheduled induction date.
She came into the world on her own terms. 


Which is probably a good way to start, seeing as how she is our fifth child 
and the baby of our (completed) family. 


 She loves to eat and burp.
She smiles... occasionally,
and spits up regularly.


She has a long list of dislikes. Including but not limited to:

Sleeping. Car rides. Pooping. Thrush. Laying down. Sleeping.
Not pooping. Binkies. Loud noises. Strollers. And sleeping.


And yet... we wouldn't want it any other way.


"A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, 
a golden thread to the meaning of life."
- Isadora James

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Sister

Three Men...














... and a Little Lady.



These are some very proud big brothers! Can you tell?


Just as they should be, when you've got something this adorable laying around at home, 
just waiting to be snuggled with! Let me tell you about her:


Claire Emelia Gailey came into the world at 9:21 the evening of February 20th, 2013,
following a lengthy induction and an expired epidural.


Weighing in at 8 lbs. 8.2 oz.
At a petite 20 1/4 inches.


Perfect and healthy with all ten fingers and ten tiny beautiful toes...


... and oodles of soft brown hair.


She was blessed on Sunday, March 3rd, 2013.
She sleeps about as much as these photos would suggest... 
unless you stop by our house between midnight and 2:00 am. 


She is super easy-going. 
And yes, she already loves pink. Mommy says so.


"Claire, the moment I met you, I swear, I felt as if something somewhere had happened to me, which I couldn't see. And then, the moment I met you again, I knew in my heart that we were friends. It had to be so, it couldn't be no. But try, as hard as I might do, I don't know why, you get to me in a way I can't describe. Words mean so little when you look up and smile. I don't care what people say, to me you're more than a child. Oh Claire."
-Gilbert O'Sullivan



*A giant thank you goes out to the very talented Seth Halsey for the awesome photographs you undoubtedly just enjoyed. We are obviously thrilled with how they turned out! Thank you, again.*

Friday, January 4, 2013

Mission Nursery: Complete.

We have been crazy busy around here lately. Too busy, in my opinion. Then again, who isn't?! With church callings, family, school, work, doctor appointments, holidays, and most of all, trying to finish up the nursery for Baby Claire! All while being 7 months pregnant, no doubt! Poor Josh has been put through the ringer... way too many days and nights spent in the garage stripping, sanding, and repainting furniture. I am happy to report that it was all worth it and the nursery is done!! 


We needed a new dresser, as our old one is occupied with clothes for our boys, and I had a vision of rescuing an old, lovable antique from Craigslist and giving it new life and purpose. Not to mention getting it on the cheap! Not so much. Turns out, people here know what that kind of stuff is worth, and we couldn't find anything that fit our criteria and wasn't completely unusable for under $600. We settled for haggling with this dude at an antique mall and got the little beauty above for a fair price. 

And so it began. Josh settled into that project (plus a few more...) and I picked up a few of my own:

In November I had my FIRST BABY SHOWER, EVER!! (Held over Veteran's Day weekend in Oklahoma) (A huge thank you to all those who came, especially my awesome friend, Morgan, who came all the way from Dallas!!) The fabulous ladies who put it on knew that I needed some fancy frames for a few craft projects I had in mind, and boy, did they deliver!! (Theresa, Laralyn, Chrissy, and Tiffany: I love and miss you all so much!!) You can see below as I get my craft on. The sign is obviously word art, and the beautiful pink towel on the table became an accent pillow later in the day. Come, I will show you pictures!


Sadly, the ones above are all the "before" shots I got. Oh, wait, there's this one... nevertheless, without further ado, I present, the finished product:


 Both of these are the view from the door. We painted the boys' old crib and glazed it. I finally got some new bedding (thanks for the gift card, Theresa and Lara!) It might seem really neutral for a mother of three boys about to have her first and  only girl. I wanted it that way. I was going for "Sweet" rather than "Cute". Something calming and not overdone. I think it works. At least I feel calm when I walk into it!


 Looking at the crib from the rocking chair's perspective. I L-O-V-E the way the button art turned out!! Super easy, too! And the delicate pink ornate frame really sets it off. (Inside the crib is the baby's moses basket. The very same one I used for both Sloan and Mason. (It fit in with the color scheme perfectly! (that might have been by design...))Wasn't sure where to put it until the big day, so it's sitting in the crib. If you don't have one, I HIGHLY recommend them for babies 0-6 months.)

My mural! I woke up one morning with this in my head. No joke. I searched the internet and found the exact vinyl tree I wanted, only problem that they didn't make them in a size big enough. I found others (naturally at Pottery Barn Kids for $450... um. No.) but they didn't come in the colors that I wanted. I knew it had to be painted, so I e-mailed my sister to have a vinyl stencil made for it (being super scared as I am to mess anything up...) but she was busy. I finally gritted my teeth, bought an overhead projector (old school, baby!) off Craigslist, and drew and hand-painted it on the wall. I think it looks pretty good! There are a couple of spots where the graphite shows through, but all-in-all, I am happy with the result. I even "carved" a little heart with the first and middle initials of each of my babies!


The dresser. You can scroll back up to the before shot, but I think that it turned out great! Josh stripped, sanded, painted, and glazed the whole thing and then we ordered pink crystal knobs from Hobby Lobby. The details in the woodworking set off by the glaze really make it delicate and feminine. Add a changing pad, and a basket of essentials, and I think that it's a perfect "grow with me" changing table. The bow holder above it was another of my DIY projects. It's a twin frame to the button art, just with chicken wire added to clip the bows to. As you can see, she already has quite the collection... it's a weakness of mine! Oh, and just so you know, I am aware that the bow holder is off-center. We did that on purpose so that I can order small canvases of our infant/sibling photo shoot to go there. 
There I go, using the old think-box!


My DIY pillows. I'm pretty proud, even if pillows are the easiest thing to make! I used leftover material from the frames for the tan one and the before pictured pink towel makes up the other one. I was looking for pre-made pillows at Home Goods after an OBGYN visit and couldn't find ANYTHING! I happened to walk through the bath section and came across some super-soft Ralph Lauren towels on the cheap in the perfect pink that I was looking for! Fate! They were super fun to make, though please note that if you intend to cut up a towel, it makes a MESS!! Mason was playing with the "pink snow" all morning! (I would have liked to paint the rocking chair to complete the set, but I received this as a Christmas gift when I was seven years old and couldn't bring myself to do it. Too many memories to change it.)


And there you have it. Our spare-time labor of love for the last two months. Now, we're just waiting for  our other "labor of love" to put in it. We are all so excited. The boys can hardly wait to see "Baby Claire" and talk of little else, as long as I am in sight, and my belly is suddenly community property for kisses, hugs, soft words, and rubbing. This poor little girl is in trouble; she's got three wonderfully doting and overprotective Big Brothers already. Heaven help the first boyfriend she tries to bring home...


Brooks and Baby Claire at 32 weeks, 2 days.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Cute Videos

So, I promised some cute videos of my kids a while ago, and didn't get around to uploading them until now. Sorry about that, but I hope you enjoy. Mason is reading us his current favorite bedtime story, "Cuddle". Gosh that baby is cute. And big, too. Sigh.



As I've mentioned in previous posts, Sloan is a music lover. It's in his blood. He sings the loudest every time we are in the car and requests all his favorites. Here he is, singing a solo to "All I Have To Do Is Dream" by the Everly Brothers. Wait for it... he gets more and more adorable every day. What do you think his stage name should be??

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Happy February!



Today at my ultrasound, while the technician had a hard time getting the baby to cooperate at all, she also could find no evidence of boy parts (something we've never experienced), so for all tentative intents and purposes, we anticipate a BABY GIRL in February of 2013! Happy February, indeed! The entire family is excited and we can't wait to finally meet Sister!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Finally Settled!

So, we've been in Maryland for a little over a month now. It's been a crazy ride, but I think that things here are finally to the point of settling down and we're getting into a routine that works for everyone. Josh works at the southern clinic in Edgewood, and is basically useless. Not that HE is, but we're not entirely sure that they even needed a dentist on this Post. He's done nothing but exams so far and only a handful of those. Here's hoping things pick up for him.

Ethan and Sloan started school. I think that they are liking it, other than there's a little boy that apparently picks on Sloan on the bus. Not sure if I just let him handle it himself, or if Mama Bear should step in the way she wants to. I guess time will tell. Other than that, the boys are adjusting well. Mason, maybe not as much. Poor kid has no idea what to do without Brothers all day, and quite frankly, Mom has no idea what to do with him. He's at that in-between age where he doesn't need me as much and craves independence,  but is too young to go to school. We're looking into Pre-School. I think it might make all the difference.

Here are my handsome boys on the first day of school:
 Ethan: 3rd Grade Age: 8

 Sloan: Kindergarten Age: 5 1/2 
Mason: Age 3

Some seriously handsome boys here at the Gailey Home. These are taken in front of our house here in Maryland. We live on Post and so far enjoy it. If only scared little Brookie were not still scared to brave to Commissary by herself... The boys ride the bus to and from school. Sloan has full-day Kindergarten (Thank goodness, because he has had 3 YEARS of preschool! The kid needed this!) I take them to the bus stop at 8:20 and they return to me at 4:00. Not too shabby! No wonder Mason and I have no idea what to do with each other for so long! 

 Our house in Maryland, the whole of it. It's actually a duplex, but I have yet to hear the neighbors, so I forget it's anything different than the last 5 years have been. It's roughly the same size as our Vegas house, for those who need a reference... and we're the first to live in it! Score!

 Our kitchen. LOVING all the cabinet space!! Plus, there's a pantry (see next shot) that is NOT in my laundry room! 
I'm in heaven. 

 Breakfast nook and pantry door. 

 Living room/Dining room. It looks really cramped, but really it's just cozy. 
Oh, and Mason, showing off a toy car.

The Office. Did I say that the kitchen was heaven? I lied.
It actually was designed to be a formal living room, but I have no use for one of those, so we converted it into an office/craft room. Ain't she purdy!?

 The hall standing between the living/dining room/kitchen and the front door/office. To the right is the powder room and the door you see is the coat closet/toy storage and also visible: the stairs. 

 Master Bedroom. Not much different from our last house in Oklahoma, but I still like it. 
Did I ever mention that Josh built that headboard for me? He loves me...

The Nursery. 
To be decorated accordingly to welcome #4 in February 2013.

Things unseen on this tour: 

The boys' bedroom: It's always a mess. I'm working on letting them handle their own cleanliness. A definite work in progress. But, it looks much the same as it did in Oklahoma. 

Bathrooms: No one actually wants to see those unless you've just re-done them cute. You're not missing anything here.

Backyard: It's currently dirt. It will be the home to a clubhouse and pool sometime in the year 2013. I'm hoping for summer, but at the rate they seem to be going on it, it's likely to open just in time for Christmas.

I hope you enjoyed. I will very soon be posting some very cute video of my boys being spontaneously adorable, which is what they do best.