Sincerely, The Lishias

Mini Vaca - Memorial Day Weekend 2016

7:10 AM

It isn't our official start of summer, but who would pass up a weekend getaway with friends?! It was our second annual Memorial Day trip to Ocean Isle, NC with a group of Charlotte friends. The weather was a sporadic mess, but it did allow us about 2-4 hours of beach time each day. Juliet loved the water... Well, until she fell face-first into it! Mom of the year, right here. Her favorite thing was playing in the sand. She was the epitome of quiet and content while scooping, pouring, shaking, sprinkling, digging, and eating. We got down there on Friday and drove back yesterday so it was short-lived, but worth it all the same! We had a blast eating, chatting, sight-seeing, and laughing our heads off! I thought I'd share a couple of pictures before our day really got cray-cray with de-sanding everything. Hope you all had a relaxing and beautiful weekend!

Month 19

8:35 AM

My baby isn't a baby anymore. She started walking on the 17th of May and is getting stronger everyday! We're not sure what exactly caused the delay, but we're thankful that she finally decided to start on her own. She is a very independent and observant little being that amazes us daily with things that she is learning.

Age: 19 months

Stats: 22 lbs 8 oz

Sleep: As of last night, we're transitioning Jules into her toddler bed! She is still having trouble sleeping through the night but her daily schedule is back on track. She's on her fourth ear infection, so we're sure that's one of the reason as to why she isn't sleeping well.

Clothing: We're officially out of 12-18 month clothing. It's all 18-24 or 2T stuff now. That means different sections at department stores... Just another tangible example that she is getting older. We're still in size 6 shoes for the most part, some shoes are sized differently so it just depends. Her swim suits were all 18-24 and one was a 2T so hopefully I can use at least 1 or 2 of them next summer! I added her beach hat from last year to her dress up basket and it's her favorite thing to wear, even though it doesn't fit anymore. :( They grow out of stuff so fast!

Favorite Foods: Hello picky toddler! My baby that use to eat black beans, broccoli, hummus, and chicken nuggets now turns her head and refuses just about anything other than a graham cracker or applesauce. As you know, our kitchen has been out of commission for the past week and a half so with that plus her pickiness all of a sudden, we've had to get creative with our grocery shopping.

Words: "HEEEYY!" Haha! I would love for my child to learn a different word, but for now it's, HEEEEEYYYY! She has said, "down", "up", "two", "all done", and "cat" (which came out, "tat").

Favorite Activities: Coloring/writing and playing outside. Now that she can walk, she's being able to experience the fun of actually playing outside; going where she wants to go and do what she wants to do. Gravel, dirt, water, sand, flowers, weeds, sticks... those are her favorite toys. We're going to have to buy stock in sunscreen and popsicles this summer, for sure because we'll be spending most of it in the sun!

Funny Things I Do: She loves to give hugs and will give one to anybody! When she hugs you she grunts and squeezes. It's enough to give you heart palpitations. She will also imitate any musical interval you hum or sing (da-da). When she wants to. It's pretty cool.

Other Milestones: Walking! (Like 85% of the time now and we are so thankful.) We are still seeing a physical therapist starting next week, (she's already had her evaluations), and hopefully that will help her feel more confident & steady. She's still moving pretty carefully and slow. After that, if her speech doesn't improve, we plan to move onto a speech therapist to help her communicate more.

Highlights:

Shedding the Shed

7:00 AM

Pay no attention to the ~~man behind the curtain~~ broken down shed there... in about 3 minutes it will be gone. It was a later addition to the house, we're thinking mid 1990s because of comments from neighbors. It was a weirdly shaped, white box that made you think of the word "goiter" when you looked at it. Inside it housed our pool pump & pool supplies- we were secretly hoping to find something a little bit more interesting, but that was pretty much it. We were told when we moved in that it needed a new roof because of improper pitch, that it had wood rot on the exterior substrate, & it was causing water damage in other parts of the house... then on top of AAALL that, it looked like this.

Yeah.... Her gotta go.

The best part of this project is that is saved us SO much money! We knew we wanted to tear it down when we first saw the house, but when we found out everything that needed to be fixed on it, it was like someone snuck $$$$ into our pockets. By tearing it down, we didn't have to spend a dime.

Well, if we didn't have the tools already, we would've spent about $150 total for a

sledge hammer, reciprocal saw, and a couple crowbars.

So in about 4 hours we went from this...

(The wind + pollen has creates a crop circle on our pool cover occasionally)

To this...

Now, by no means is this an "after" photo. In the place of the shed now lays the sink, dishwasher, and debris from our kitchen, but at least the shutters are gone that are pictured above. Like I've said before, it's just one gigantic mess after another but it's coming together beautifully and we couldn't be prouder! When we're finished it'll be our little piece of heaven. Hope you all are having a great start to the week that involves no demolition, but if it does I hope this was a little motivation!
Happy Monday!

Updating Juliet's Room

8:25 PM

With all those changes going on, I wanted to move on to something a little bit more "fun" and impractical. (And of course... my mind went straight to Jules.) When we moved, we got rid of her wooden & very large, poppy red dresser because... 1- we didn't want to fool with moving big bulky furniture this time around and 2- we knew that in the new house her room would serve as bedroom and playroom so we needed the space. That left us with her gold Jenny Lind crib and the gray Graham glider from West Elm, as far as furniture goes. Kind of a blank canvas really.

So I've bought a couple things and even though I've decided which one we're going with, I included both mood boards that I created in this process, thinking it might be useful to someone else.

I created the top one first and decided it didn't have the amount of whimsy that I wanted; that's when I added in the puppies, garland, & larger prints.

Either way, Juliet's new room is built around all things "whimsical", her love for puppies. and Mama's love for everything pink. My favorite item out of these two boards is the Honey pillow from the Emily & Meritt line from Pottery Barn Kids. Mainly because the other side of the pillow says, Bunny... which is what we call her sometimes. Her room will be one of the first completed rooms in the house and because of that, my favorite.

For a list of products and sources from these boards click here.

Hope you guys have a relaxing and enjoyable Sunday!

Fireplace (Re)-Finished

7:44 AM

Anyone want to guess which one we chose??? Drum roll............. This one!!!

We decided to go with white. It's clean, simple, and since we're not sure what paint color the living room/dining room will eventually be, we figured it was a safe bet. We wanted to go ahead and do it before we began the/any "decor" process because we knew it was going to clean up the area and make it feel bigger. (Which it desperately needed.) The only difference between ours and the one above, is we painted the front left and right sides of the firebox white instead of painting it all black inside. We thought it created more depth. To make that clearer, here's a picture...

So without further ado... Here's an "in between" picture.

We still lacked painting/trimming underneath the mantel in this picture, but with Juliet coloring in the floor I couldn't resist but to snap (this very blurry) pic. You can see the dark areas on the bottom.

Here's a pic of it all completed.

Joey stayed up last night and finished painting underneath the mantel and the sides. Well worth it.

We just lack filling in the gaps between the brick and the ceiling. We're waiting to do that because the ceilings in the living room, dining room, and kitchen are popcorn ceilings and we are going to be scraping them soon. Also, the three toned wall is still there to the left... if you remember, that's where the desk and book shelves were that we ripped down. It's never ending. On to the next project!

If you are thinking about painting your brick fireplace, here are the steps we took to achieve this look:

1. Clean entire fireplace- find instructions on that here.

2. Prime brick & mortar. We used SW Loxon Concrete & Masonry Primer/Sealer

3. Wait at least a day for the primer to dry.

4. Paint. We chose Super Paint - satin finish in City Loft

5. Add decorative touches and enjoy!