Say Cheese - Part 1

So finally, here are some snapshots of the house.

I'll start with the kids' rooms.  We didn't have to do a thing with paint colors when we moved in.  The family here before us had three kids...one boy and two girls. Awesome.

This is Pretty Baby's room.

Here come my artsy crooked pictures . . .

 In the picture above you can see the beautiful dressing table that the kids' great-grandmother, Ma, gave us.  She has always been so generous with sharing well-loved things with us and she and I share an affinity for so much the same styles, drawn to things that are worn with use and history and stories.  It's such a lovely piece of furniture.

Below there is a shot of one of the two prints from old Good Housekeeping magazine covers with sweet little girls on it that my mom and SisterFriend got for Brilliant Beauty's nursery a decade ago.  They've been in dormancy all these years, but now have new life in Pretty Baby's room.

 I spent $1.77 per letter for Pretty Baby's name, and about $0.65 per bottle on brown, green, and pink acrylic paints for painting the letters.  Not bad.  And I could not pass up this sweet mobile that was on clearance for $8.00.

Pretty Baby's view as she dozes off and awakens.

 My mom painted this rocking chair as another feature for our first baby's room, and now it lives happily in this new baby room (although every day I wonder how much longer we'll get away with calling her a baby - growing so much so fast).  The rocker is the same chair in which my grandmother, Ruby, rocked my dad, uncle, and aunt. So special.

 Here's the rest of the room.  So much like everything else in our house, I snagged the painted wicker dresser and the little table and chairs as they are now at two separate trips to the thrift store.  I think I invested about $25 for all of it.

So that's Pretty Baby's space . . .

Here's Little Big Man's room.  My mother-in-law, Sandy, was generous enough to give us all of the cowboy decor she used for one of her sons, so he's all decked out like Cowboy Woody.

What a goofus.

 Below is the look-alike picture we found of Little Big Man at the thrift store.  It hangs just inside the room to the right when you walk in the door.

 The picture below is what he looks like most days...a blur.  Sheesh.  But here's his lasso, other cool cowboy stuff, and cute little garment rack, all courtesy of Sandy.

I love this wall lamp.  It casts the coolest light, especially when the rest of the room is dark.

The cool light in the dark.

This is his closet in which all the toys fit nicely (can I get an "amen"?), along with his vast wardrobe (heh, heh).

What is this pose he keeps doing?  What a boy.

He can (and does) dump the full contents of his toy box out and strow them all about, but we can get it all cleaned up and back to tip-top shape in about ten minutes.  Hallelujah, cowabunga.

And last, but not least, Brilliant Beauty's corner of the world... 

She loves this room and I do, too.  It has a nature/creation overall motif with flowers, bugs, and butterflies.  Below is a shot of the "Bella's Room" sign SisterFriend got Brilliant Beauty for Christmas with her new room in mind.  Very cool.

Aw, look.  It's Ringo the dog.  Isn't he cute?  You can
have him if you want him.
Seriously.  No, I mean it.  Really.

Just to add to the ridiculously huge list of nearly custom-fit blessings, this headboard was from the previous owners.  She made it for one of her daughters and didn't want to leave us a wall with holes in it, so she opted to leave the fabric headboard with us.  Brilliant Beauty really liked it, it matched her bedding, and so it stays.

This pile of fluff is Brilliant Beauty's oh-so-sentimental blob of stuffed animals.  And if you can believe it, we actually winnowed this collection of dust balls down SIGNIFICANTLY before we moved.  Oy.  I'm not in love with the stuffed animals, but I do love that she's still quite happily a little girl.

The yellow dresser was Ma Luffin Mayun's when he was a baby.
The drawers are still lined inside with the wallpaper his mom used for
his nursery.  Orange, goldenrod, and avocado.  Pure awesomeness.

We spent the same $1.77 per letter on these, but used paints
we already had.  Nice.

We've had these garden lanterns for years with no real good place to
put them.  They are perfect in her room and she loves them.

This is the gal's outrageously awesome closet, like Jem-and-the-Holograms-truly-truly-truly-outrageous-ly awesome closet.

There's shelving all down the wall to the right inside her closet.
It's mack-daddy.

These next three pictures are so not candid, but I think she wanted it to look like they were.  Brilliant Beauty can strike a pose with the best of 'em.

Hey, Cayline...do you remember giving this sweet giraffe bank to a
yet-to-be-born Brilliant Beauty?  She's always loved it.  Thanks so much!

"Oh, hey Mom.  I'm just reading on my bed and pointing my cute toes
 in my groovy new room. Whatcha doin' with that camera?"

 This is the landing at the top of the stairs.  You can see Brilliant Beauty's room at the top right corner.   Little Big Man's room is all the way to the right, and Pretty Baby's is to the left of the bathroom.  The stuff in the picture has been awaiting a return downstairs to be given away for about twenty days.  Hmm.  Who will finally cave and bring it down, I wonder?

In this picture Little Big Man is asking (literally), "Mama, will THIS booger
put bugs in my belly?"  He's apparently wishing we'd give him the all-clear to consume
his nasal secretion.  I don't know why, but these are universal kid foods,
like chicken nuggets and cheese fish crackers.

This is the game closet (between Brilliant Beauty's and Little Big Man's room).  Only twice have I regretted it being this easily accessible.  But apparently whatever threat I made the last time they disassembled the contents of a game has had lasting effects.

And there you have it.  That's the kids' area of the house.  More to come...