Nellie at 9 Months

Gonna start with what I'm sure you've been waiting for, Sweet Nellie Bird's 9 month picture.

We never got much more that this because, apparently, it is quite painful to be detached from your mommy and you can't help but whine and cry until she picks you up again. You understand, don't you? In the house, when brother is there to play with you, or at the table when the pleasure of food is there to distract you, or even in your bed when trips to Sleepytown come fast, it's easier to suppress the urge to cry. Without those, though, a girl just has to let loose.

Other than that annoying mommy separation thing, Helena is a sweet natured, easy baby. She has a weird habit of sticking her face in the water when she's taking a bath. Very different from her brother who hates getting his face wet so much, he refuses to even go to a splash pad. She loooooovvvvves to eat but wants to have the last word on what is put into her mouth. If she is not ready for the yogurt and wants to feed herself a blueberry instead, she will squeeze her eyes shut, turn her head and purse her lips. She is not as opinionated about crawling. As a matter of fact, she has no opinion, since she has never even tried to do it. We think she's doing a booty scoot to move around when we are not looking, since she seems to end up in different locations, but we don't see it and she never breaks the plane of her sit. She does like to stand, though, and if you would be so kind as to stand her up at the coffee table, she will play there. Thank you very much.

Since I didn't spend too much time shooting pics of my sweet girl, we used our time to spiff up Meg's family room. She found a rug she loved here in FW. When we put it down, it was like an exclamation mark on what was missing. We got rid of a chair, moved another one and had Kenny bring down some pictures that were hanging in our house to put into hers. The only thing that was missing was a statement piece on the one big blank wall. She had a vision but no money.

We bought hundreds of clothes pins (750 to be exact), some string, and she had paint left from the chairs in the kitchen. We used an Anthropologie window as inspiration and went to town.

hundreds of clothespins

First, we taped up string where we thought we wanted it.

Then we started painting the pins. I started by doing a light, medium and dark batch of each color, but that was taking waaaay to long. 750 pins, 4 colors, short attention span.

I ended up just putting a bowl full in, swishing till they were covered, and taking them out. I put them on the fence to dry.

When they dried, the fun began. Hours and hours of pinning. And eating popsicles.

Great mother/daughter bonding time.  We loved the way it turned out.

What do you think? For less than $25, we had a huge piece of "artwork" for a large blank wall.


And this is the room after we finished moving things around. The rug is an over dyed look that she has been seeing around. For about $10,000. Those are for the folks that want the real thing. Real wool, hand loomed, and truly over dyed. We wanted the $299 rug that kids can barf and poop on and it wipes off. Also, it will not fade, but could melt if you ironed on it. Who would know that this is a possibility? Me. I ironed on a rug made of the same super synthetic blend and have the triangle to prove it. So she won't iron on it.  I made the curtains out of burlap and trimmed them with the burlap straps you weave to make the seat of a chair. I made the white pillows from feed sacks that I've had lying around for years. The pictures are from my family room and the couch is our couch (we traded). I'm about to redo MY family room, too and it's a lot cheaper to trade out stuff than buy new things. All things considered, especially the price, She is very pleased with the outcome.