2nd Birthday Snapshots

6:38 PM
With less than a month away from her birthday and all the renovations still going on, we are knee deep in party prep and man glitter over here!  Plus, we're having a yard sale tomorrow morning so my mind is in several different places.  In an attempt to get centered, I sat down and uploaded a few of my favorite pics from a quick little photoshoot we did in the yard with the "almost" birthday girl! 

She absolutely loves looking through books so I incorporated some of her favorite stories in the shoot.  I also had to include her trusty sidekick, "kii kaaa", (kitty cat).  That plush toy cat has gone everywhere with her over the past year and when I had to decide on a party theme, it was the one thing I knew she loved.  So needless-to-say, she's having a kitty cat birthday bash!  Perfect timing with all the black cat halloween decor on the shelves this time of year.  I think she'll be pleased! :)  







It's been quite a ride with you the past two years, little girl.  Making sure you have everything you need, (and/or want... lol), has gotten a little easier, but mostly leaves me feeling like I should be a circus attraction by the end of the day.  Is "crazy lady" a thing at the circus?"  We're starting to get a little more sleep and a little more energy but all the lost sleep and energy has definitely been WORTH IT and I wouldn't trade you for anything! 
Love you, Julie girl. 

Dress  //  Bow   //  Blanket  //  Kitten

To end the post, here's a list of the books that we've been loving the past few months!  
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and much cooler weather. 










*Month 22 & 23*

12:00 AM
This post consists of Juliet's 22nd and 23rd month because... life.   You know how it gets.  It just dawned on me the other day, (when Jules threw a fit and made a high pitch shrill that could've broken a window), that our little girl is one month away from turning 2!  Insane.  I have a 2 year old.  How is this possible?  


Age: 22 & 23 months

Stats:  26.3 lbs

Clothing:  24 months/2T clothes.  Size 5 shoe, even though I've bought her a couple 6's in her more expensive shoes so that she can wear them longer.  She likes to pick out what she's going to wear now and she even tries to put them on which is adorable until the tantrum starts because she needs help even though she thinks she doesn't.  

Favorite Foods:  Pears, Brioche bread (literally she ate 4 pieces one day), and Nutella.  I have to sneak veggies in smoothies mostly and meat is still not of any interest to her.  She eats like 7 times a day and she well lets me know when she's hungry but crawling into her highchair by herself and making "Mmmm!  Mmmm!" sounds until we feed her.  

Words: We've been signing more words for her to try and help her communicate.  She's catching on and doing really well!  It's definitely taking the frustration out of it for the both of us.  The new words that we've heard her say is "excuse me", (shew-she) "thank you" (ant-uh), "help" (hay-ulp), "dog" (doog) & "go"!  She mimics our inflection in everything that we say but not quite all the words and sounds.   

Favorite Activities:  Helping us in the kitchen is what she lives for!  We've incorporated several montessori items that helps involve her in the cooking process and she loves the independence.  She stirs, pours, and actually cuts veggies with my help.  She loves sitting and reading her books.  I've noticed that she thinks all her books are counting books.  She points and pretends to count each item in the pictures.  Other than that pretty much "going through" everything is her favorite pastime.
   
Other Milestones:  Other than saying a few more words, the biggest milestone that we've witnessed is Juliet sorting shapes, sizes, and colors on the Shapes for Baby iPad app.  It's the cutest app and it buys me a couple more minutes when browsing Target aisles.  We've also been drawing circles on her magna doodle, which is basically her drawing endless loops but she does understand the difference between circular motion vs. linear.

Highlights:

 She's still the most loving little girl.  She'll hug and kiss strangers, including their pets and thinks the whole world is sunshine and rainbows... unless you take her graham cracker.  All hell will break loose if you take her graham cracker.  She tries to be as independent as possible and she's showing sure signs of being a little daredevil.  She tries to make us happy when she gets in trouble.  She waves and says "hi" over and over again thinking that we're mad at her. We eventually give in and wave back to show no hard feelings while trying desperately to stick with the consequence.
Nevertheless, we love her to pieces and can't wait to celebrate her 2nd birthday next month!






















Kitchen Reno Stage 3: Sink + Cabinet Panels, Doors, & Hardware

11:42 PM


It's almost done.  It's been such a slow process but we're nearing the finish line.  In the last post we only had our boxes, counter tops, appliances, and our wine rack installed.  Even though it was a big improvement, it still looked dreadful and more importantly, it wasn't usable.  So I was still washing dishes in the bathroom sink and we were on our seventeenth rotisserie chicken. Luckily this stage didn't last too long.     


So needless to say I'm very thankful that we now have cabinet doors and a working sink!!


Our cabinet boxes are the IKEA SEKTION system in white but we bought the doors, drawer fronts, hardware and panels from a company called Semihandmade.  They make custom fronts specifically for IKEA cabinets, including bathroom cabinets.  They have gorgeous colors and styles to chose from including a raw wood choice that is paintable.  We chose their clay color in the slab style for our base cabinets, which is a beautiful gray-green color.  We only have upper cabinets above the refrigerator and we went with white for those.  The hardware is a combination of Lewis Dolin pulls and bars in brushed brass.  They might be, by far, my favorite part of the kitchen!  
  

We also finished sheet rocking and painting the back wall.  The color that we went with for the dining room, living room, and this one wall in the kitchen is polar bear by Behr.  The other walls in the kitchen will be tiled.  The tile will be going up this weekend since we finally agreed on a pattern.  
I'll be sharing more on that over on Instagram (@bklishia) and Snapchat (lady_lishia) this week!
For more storage space, we will add two open shelves to either side of the kitchen window.  Can't wait until there up and I can share pictures!  
  

 Another project that we are in the middle of right now is switching (no pun intended) out all the receptacles and light switches to be more updated, a little less "gold plated" and a lot more child-proof.  


Thanks for reading along and keeping up with our progress!


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New Lights- Part 1

9:26 PM
So far we've bought two new lights for the front entrance; 4 pendant lights, 1 flush mount for the entryway, a couple of can lights, and a light/fan combo for the screened-in porch.  Yeah... we've kind of gotten a little carried away with the pendants, but I we just love them!  I really want to buy one more (for the study), but I think it might be a little much.  Ahhh- who cares.  I'm doing it!

I am writing this post in 2 parts because we still lack installing some of the lights that we've bought.  So here's Part 1!


The lights are the newest things on the porch... even the planters were bought 3+ years ago and the bottom has completely rotted fallen out of one of them! :)  I plan on replacing them with tons of giant pumpkins in a few months anyway!  (I can't wait... Hurry up Fall!)  I also can't wait to see these cute little mid-mod lights on a freshly painted porch & house! It's going to look so different.



Yelp- Joey installed all the lights for us.  I will be posting a installment how-to on the 2nd post.
Just in case you're reading this in a poorly lit room and feeling a bit bored and friskaaay.  :)



Looks like they're wearing tiny top hats... so cute!  (And also... It looks like the painter must have been sooooo ready for lunch when he painted this side of the porch.)

Light

Our entryway also has an updated light!  It needed something flush, small, and simple since it's not a large space.  The light is from CB2 and was good price and size.  Plus, with the gold details, it will match the other lights perfectly. The mount is gold at the top....

 Light

...and the inside of the bell is gold as well.  Love it!
We're ordering another one of these lights for the hallway and two of these bulbs to go inside them.


This is obviously in our laundry room and instead of mounting the light where the socket was actually located, we swagged? swung? swished? (whatever), the light to the front and center of the window.  This window is on the front of our house so you can see the light from the outside.  :)  Looks dreamy at night.

Light

And lastly, Juliet's room.  She has a gorgeous prism shaped light in her room that I wish I would've had in her nursery when she was a baby.  I mean, just look at the flecks of light and shadow on the ceiling and walls.  Gorgeous!  She would've been entertained for hours.  Maybe for the next baby we can disassemble a disco ball, take the spinning mechanism out and put it on this one.
Best. Day. Ever.

Light:  sold out // similar here

Hope you enjoyed a small sample of our improvements.  Do you guys have pendant lights in your home?  How many is too many, ya think???  Someone stop me!