Wedding Dress Wine Night

So I had this idea...

It came to me after randomly discussing with several different friends that many of us had never had our wedding dresses cleaned or packed away. Mine was/is still hanging (probably with sand still stuck in the seams) in a bag in our guest closet. Remembering that I had heard this repeated several times, I thought, we need to all come together and drink wine while in our dresses... white wine, just to be safe. 

It was perfect timing to host such an event, because most of our husbands were away on deployment together. Any excuse to gather and drink wine, am I right ladies? And to wear our dresses, yes please!

(I know we all secretly hoped that we'd slip right back into them.)

Here I am, wearing my dress, mid-day. Don't mind the clean diaper behind my shoulder. And I forgive you if you didn't even know that was a (cloth) diaper. 

And now I've shown you what real life looks like at my house.

I cleaned and danced around the house while Camdin took a nap. 

When the chicas arrived, a few of them still had to slip into their dresses. 

Nothing like getting laced up by another bride... when it's not even your wedding day. Ha.

We first ventured out to take some individual pictures of each of us. Some of us went for a more high fashion approach, and totally pulled it off! This is the lovely Kate Spitz of  ourhoodsherwood, who made the rest of us look like chumps with this pose. 

I on the other hand have mastered the cheesy grin. Because I've never oozed sexiness naturally.

But she does... hey hot mama!

Camdin even had fun seeing us all gussied up. 

Although, I think she thought our legs disappeared. Here I am reassuring her that everything is fine. 

Places, everyone!

The smile on this little face is priceless. She LOVES to be thrown in the air, twirled, tossed around. The girl is fearless. 

Group shot! These were all of the fine ladies that came to celebrate being married (or wine, however you look at it). We almost all made it into our dresses, if it weren't for The Dress being in another state (short dress), belly size (ahem, cutest preggo ever), or simply age (tiny lady).

Check out Camdin cheesin' it up... in the wrong direction.

... drum roll...

We even had CAKE!

Being the sentimental gals that we are, we all cut it together. 

Poppin' more bottles after we came inside, and before the dresses quickly got put away because it was hot as Hades this fine June evening. This is Miss Kate looking gorgeous with her make-up and her hair all did. Show off. (love you!)

Camdin even lost her dress... although it was bath time, technically.

So there you have it. Wedding Dress Wine Night. 

Anyone out there still have their dress accessible for a fun night like this? I can honestly say that we all had a blast, and had fun traipsing around in our frocks. However, we were just as happy to remove them and slip into some yoga pants with stretchy waistbands. We reminisced about our favorite parts of the wedding, and were all thankful that we never have to plan another one again. 

Cheers to friends, marriage, weddings, dresses, and wine!

Room Swap for a Big Girl

The hubs and I have been anxiously waiting to announce that Mini #2 is in the making, and we finally released the news this last week. I was hoping to reveal the secret with another shocker regarding a new destination, but that one fell through. (We were hoping to find out about moving later this year, but it now looks like we'll be hanging in Little Rock for roughly another 18months+.) With all of that said, I realized that we had Camdin crammed in the smaller of our two bedrooms for no reason. I thought it might make more sense to switch her to the bigger room to have more space for toys and playing for our time left here. And then we got wind that we'll be staying a bit longer, which solidified my decision (and a new baby doesn't need lots of play room- so for now the other room remains a guest room until the summer time!).

The guest room/office (bigger of the two bedrooms) was the last room in the house that needed painting. That was first on the list. Here's the room before. Boring tan.

Here it is mid-painting.

I chose Aqua Tint by Valspar because I wanted the room to seem as big as possible, and I didn't want much of a color. 

And here's the finished product after it all came together. 

Same curtains and dresser as before, but I added some new art. 

Camdin particularly loves the fox.

Here's her big girl bed with the toddler rail, and the tent I made for her last summer. 

Oh, wait... you didn't know she was in a toddler bed already? Well, let's back up. 

The day we put the room together and laid her down for a nap in her crib, this is what happened.

SO, I swapped the toddler rail in, ASAP. I knew that she wouldn't stay in her crib once she had figured how to crawl out, so there was no going back. We swapped out the side, and it's been downhill from there. She caught on VERY quickly, and has LOVED her bed ever since. 

But she's not the only one loving it.

I even caught Camdin sitting in her bed one afternoon, just having a nice read.

The duvet cover I made from linen and added the stars with fabric paint. I made a couple of sheets as well, and pillow cases for her pillow. I couldn't find anything I liked, so off to the fabric store I went. This was the stash I came home with.

Top is the linen, middle are the sheet fabrics (apparently I went with a bird theme), and the bottom two are the pillowcases. 

Ok... on to the rest of the room. 

This is Camdin's favorite. Her bookshelf and kitchen. 

I made the kitchen out of an old cabinet from the Habitat ReStore. 

Here are my work-in-progress pictures. 

The sink was a stainless steel bowl I had. The faucet was also from the ReStore. The burners are sink stoppers from the dollar store with the top nub cut off. The trivet in the oven was an extra I had, and it works perfectly as a shelf for her baking!

This is the priming stage, and installation of the battery powered light. I later realized it would be easier to have the light on the side of the oven for Camdin to get better leverage for turning it on and off. 

Here is was all finished on Christmas morning, ready for her to dive into. I filled it with all of my old kitchen/ play food from when I was her age. Gotta love parents that kept EVERYTHING. ;)

So this is what her room looks like everyday, now. I love how light it is, with light pouring in her window. It's always so bright and cheery. Just like my little bug. 

Happy Valentine's Day from my little lady who is infatuated 

with raiding her own closet on a daily basis. We love you Camdin!