A quick look back at 2011 and a bathroom update!

Well I have a lot of catching up to do! I'm not doing well on blogging these days. I've picked a picture or two from each month that I missed to catch my blog up and hopefully I can do a little better keeping it up do date! Also at the bottom I included pictures of the update that I did to the girl's bathroom. Please let me know if you read my blog by making a comment. I originally started blogging to keep up with long distance family and friends but now with facebook I'm wondering if I need to continue this?!

March 2011

April 2011 This was a school picture. Emma didn't cooperate for a smile but I still thought it turned out cute!

 May 2011 Anna's first ballet recital! She looked beautiful and I loved watching her do a tap and ballet routine on stage! She has sinced moved on to gymnastics for this school year and is really enjoying that.

 May 2011 Sweet Emma (almost 2)

 I made Emma's birthday cake for her second birthday.

June 2011 Emma at her 2nd birthday party. She loves Minnie Mouse. We had a small party with mostly family and friends from church. Emma had a blast even though it started to rain right as we were getting everyone dressed in swim suits to play outside in the water. She didn't seem to mind! Can't believe how fast the time is going by with these precious girls!!

June 29, 2011 Emma on the day of her actual birthday.

 July 2011 Our second beach trip for the summer. This one was a short trip to St. Simon's Island in south Georgia. Jonathan spoke at a coach's clinic and the girls and I tagged along for some beach fun!

 August 2011 Back to school! The girls both go to "preschool" (mother's morning out really). Emma goes 2 mornings a week and Anna goes 3 mornings. I'm so thankful to be able to continue to stay home with them almost full time (only teaching two mornings a week)!!

 Another homemade birthday cake. I really love doing this for my girls!! I'd love to take cake decorating classes one day but for now I just look for ideas online and struggle through!

 September 2011 Anna's 5th birthday. She had a princess birthday party. We had it in the president's club at the CSU gym. The girls dressed like princesses, had their hair braided, nails done, make-up, etc. Anna had a great time!

 Emma had lots of fun at the party too!

 October 2011 A family weekend away in the moutains of North Georgia before Jonathan got busy with basketball season! We hiked, went to a corn maze and Baby Land General (home of the Cabbage Patch kids) while we were there. It was a great weekend!

 November 2011 Sweet sisters at grandma's house. We had a busy month of basketball and time with family for Thanksgiving. We spent time with both mine and Jonathan's families.

December 2011 The girls posing in the shirts they made at preschool after their Christmas musical.

2011 was a wonderful year for the Norton's! We are blessed beyond measure. God is so faithful in providing for our needs, keeping our family healthy and bringing happiness to us through our beautiful daughters on a daily basis.

Below are before and after pictures of the girl's bathroom. Our home is over 40 year old and slowly but surely we are trying to make some updates. Jonathan's dad came and put bead board up for us in our bathroom before Christmas. I sanded, primed, painted, caulked, etc. It's been a slow process as I had to do it at night when the girls were in bed. My mother in law ordered towels for me for my birthday to help complete the look I was going for. Initially Anna asked for a pink bathroom but changed her mind and chose turquoise. This is not surprising as her favorite colors are blue. I absolutely love the color! It's so bright and with all the white it just feels perfect (to me anyway). The girls are happy with it too!

Before. I removed the old medicine cabinet on the wall and Jonathan's dad patched the wall for me.

Before. We also removed this cabinet over the toilet to give it a more updated look.

Here it is!

I changed mirrors to one that is a little more feminine looking. Not my dream mirror but it worked in my budget :)

I hung hooks on the wall for the girls towels. I love the polka dots!



I painted letters for the girls names and added clear jewels along one edge of each letter to give them a girly look. I set them along the ledge of the bead board. Emma's looks smaller in this picture but it must have just been the angle I took the picture from because they are all the same size.

One more project checked off my list! If the others take me this long I'm in trouble :)

Thanks for reading!

Fun Art Work (by Anna & Me)!

Anna loves to color and draw. This is what her people look like (see below).They all have a round body/head with arms, legs, a face & hair. So cute--it makes me smile. She also loves to write. She can only spell a few words Anna, Emma, mommy and hot (don't know how she learned this one but I think by accident). She can write most of her letters but still needs work on some of them. She doesn't like much help from me unfortunately (but some days I can catch her wanting me to help)!

I've wanted to do this for a long time but after seeing a tutorial from my friend's blog I was motivated to get started. I love all the new wall art that you can just rub onto the wall but most of it is very expensive. Instead I learned how to do it myself using word processing, transfer paper and a paint pen. It's pretty time consuming (especially since I chose a long verse) but I enjoyed it and like the result. We are really trying hard to learn more scripture in our family. My goal is to have scriptures all over our house. Our kitchen now has two verses on the wall. One from a wall adhesive that I found at Life-Way for $14.99 which I thought was a great deal and the other is the one I painted on. Pictures of both are below. I plan to do my next one in mine and Jonathan's bedroom. If I get to it I'll post pictures :)

 This is the wall art I purchased from Life Way (Numbers 6:24 &25). It is 4 separate stickers. I liked the verse but I also loved that it has the colors of my kitchen (teals and even a litte yellow).

It picks up the color of my favorite little cabinet that I painted when we lived in Rome, GA.

Here is the one I painted (Galatians 5:22 & 23). I also recently painted my door the color blue that is in my den and am really loving it!

Close up of the verse.

I printed the letters off of the computer after I chose the font and size I wanted and then taped them to the wall.

Next I used transfer paper to copy the letters to the wall. It left this turquoise writing. Finally I used a paint pen to paint each letter (see pictures from above of the final product). Yes, this took a really long time and since it was so high on the wall my right arm and shoulder got a workout :)

I did some painting in Anna's room awhile back that I will have to post pictures of. For that one I wrote my own letters and made stencils out of manilla folders and then painted it. That was a much more difficult way. I'm thankful for my creative friend Amy whose ideas I'm constantly stealing. Take a look at her blog sometime Amy's blog for great ideas! You're so talented Amy!

Quick update for 2011

Since last time I posted...Emma is talking so much more. Anna quizzes her everyday on what words she can say. She will repeat most anything but of course some words are more recognizable than others. Anna is getting more & more independent and is such a good helper. She loves her little sister and most of the time likes to include her in everything she does. I haven't been doing a good job of taking pictures lately but I've included a few from January and February. Jonathan is doing great too by the way...he never seems to get in our pictures (of course I don't either). His basketball season is in full swing but he manages to still find lots of time to make his three girls (including me) feel special. He has a young team and has lost some games that he was disappointed about but there is still a good chance that they can do well in the rest of the season and tournament and go into post-season play. That would keep him busier for longer but I really hope they can!! Here are the pictures :)

This was taken the morning that the girls had pajama day at school (January). I thought it was hillarious that Anna wanted to wear her Buzz Lightyear pj's and Snow White Socks. Emma wore her sister's hand me down princess pj's.

I made the flowers that the girls have in their hair by using a link to a tutorial that I got from my friend Amy's blog. It was super easy! I made pink flower pins for all of the ladies at my MOPS group in honor of one of our members who just finished radiation for breast cancer; I think everyone enjoyed them. Anna's is a pin attached to a cloth headband and for Emma's I used a clip (I think they are called alligator clips) like I use when I make their hair bows. Here's the link for anyone else who wants to try http://jonesdesigncompany.com/tutorial/flower-pin-tutorial

These pictures are of the girls dressed up in their Tangled t-shirts the day we went to see the movie. They had the t-shirts and books long before we ever saw the movie; Anna loves anything to do with a princess even is she doesn't know the story. My mom came for the weekend and Jonathan had a Friday night with no basketball so we took the girls to the movie last weekend. Anna got a little scared in parts (why does Disney have to put creepy looking characters in all of their movies?) but she enjoyed it. Emma sat still in parts and enjoyed jumping from lap to lap and eating popcorn :)

 Before picture (well kind of...I stopped to take it as I was getting started).

After. This is the door from our kitchen into our laundry room. It was desperately in need of painting and my sweet friend Amy suggested I paint it the color of blue that is in our den. Our kitchen is yellow with touches of this color. It's taken me a few days to get used to but I think I really like it! Anna was thrilled and asked if we could paint her bedroom door blue too (her favorite color). I told her having her walls blue was enough color in there :)

Thanks for reading! Hope you're enjoying your family as much as I am mine! Don't forget to count your blessings :)

Christmas Blessings 2010

Hope all of you had a blessed Christmas! We certainly did. Life with two sweet little girls brings so many smiles and blessings! I think I appreciate being a mother more each day and am trying to savor each moment with my girls as they are passing by so very quickly. Anna is so grown up and wants to help me with everything (including being a little mother to Emma). Thankfully, most of the time, she is very loving and sweet to her little sister (although sharing her new toys from Christmas is not something she does easily). Emma is talking and learning new words each day--I guess Anna probably talked this much at 18 months as well but it's amazing what you forget! Emma is also our little cuddle bug. She loves to be held and cuddle which of course just melts our heart. I hope this never ends!

We went to our parent's houses the week before Christmas to celebrate with my mom, brother and grandparents; Jonathan's brother and parents; and then my Dad and Marty. We are blessed to have lots of family who love us and I'm so thankful that my girls are even getting to know their great grandparents. We came back home on Christmas Eve so we can have our own traditions with our girls and let them be in their own home on Christmas morning. Church on Christmas Eve was supposed to be one of these but we had a sick baby so we missed this year. The girls played with toys from Santa on Christmas morning, big breakfast, birthday celebration for Jesus, and then lots of playtime. My favorite part was going to look at lights Christmas night...it started snowing while we were driving around with the Christmas music playing and all the pretty lights outside. Great way to end a special day with our sweet little family! Here are just a few pictures from our Christmas.

 

Our biggest blessings this Christmas-Anna (4) Emma (18 months)

Happy Birthday Jesus! Anna decorated the cake; she was quite pleased :) it was purple, pink, turquoise and green with all of those colors of sprinkles. She picked 3 candles for Jesus :)

Christmas at mom's was a little crazy. We were supposed to celebrate with her on Thursday but Anna got strep so we post-poned to Christmas Eve morning (Fri). Emma woke up that morning with a head to toe rash and I had to take her to the doctor before we were able to head to mom's. We got there around lunch time and all of the kids were ready for a nap by then. We tried for pictures with everyone but that didn't go well! Here's one with she and my brother and I after the presents were open.

Christmas with Dad and Marty. Dad was decked out in his tacky sweater from a work contest. I should have posted another picture I have--he had lights all through the front of the sweater that lit up in the shape of a tree (battery operated of course). Very creative Dad; he won the contest at work.

The Norton family. We had fun posing for pictures on my mother in laws steps. Rachel arranged us for this picture and we used Ursula's camera with a timer to get everyone in. My neices are also growing up too fast as you can see. Rachel is 14 and Sarah is 12 (but both have birthdays coming soon). My girls loved playing with their cousins!

Family Photo Session 2010

Well I had more pictures to post than I thought! We had our family pictures taken about a month ago. We haven't had a family picture taken since Anna was one! She is now almost 4 and Emma is one. Hopefully it won't be so long before the next one :) I feel truly blessed to have a healthy family!

Off to school!

I didn't get any pictures of the girls on their first day back to school (they go to a mother's morning out on Tuesdays & Thursdays). Yesterday I managed to get a couple of pictures of them before they headed off for the day though. It was fall picture day at their school. Anna LOVES going and Emma is getting more adjusted after lots of tears for the first few weeks. I'm teaching three online classes this semester so I'm thankful for the time they are there so I can either work or run errands. Jonathan is busy with basketball workouts and conditioning; practice officially starts October 15th. We are getting more involved with our new church and are feeling more connected. God amazes me with each move we've made and what He teaches me through the churches we've been a part of. I also feel very blessed because there are about 4 new young couples with children who have also recently just moved to Columbus from other areas and who have joined the church. I know this is not a coincidence and am excited about how God is going to grow all of us as we serve Him together and hopefully grow closer to each other as well! Anna has her 4th birthday coming up next month so hopefully I'll have more pictures to post soon :)

A few summer projects

I really enjoy doing little projects but rarely find the time to do them. I managed to find time for a few this summer so I thought I'd post a few pics.

When we lived in Rome, GA Jonathan had an idea to hang an old window box we weren't using on our swingset and it looked really cute. The old one was red and I painted Anna's garden on it. It was falling apart so my father in law made a new one. Anna wanted it painted blue and of course I had to add sweet little Emma's name to this one. I liked the red color better but this blue matches the swings and the canopy on the fort and is Anna's favorite color. The letters are not perfect but I hate stenciling so I do my letters free hand :)

I found a board in the scrap pile at Lowe's for less than a dollar and painted it black and then hand painted this Bible verse from Joshua on it in a cream color. I used eye hooks and black wire to hang it above the chair you'll see below. It's hanging next to the door on our front porch.

I found this ladder back chair at Goodwill for $7. I cut the seat out and painted the chair black. I had a wire basket I wasn't using so I wired it in the seat part and planted some flowers. I'm disappointed that the begonias I planted on the sides of the sweet potatoe vine haven't spread out; next summer I'll use different flowers for a fuller look. I love the chair on the front porch though...it helped fill an empty spot near the front door.

Another sale--found this little bird house on sale at Michael's and thought it would look cute next to my chair. Wish I could take credit for painting it but not me :)

Here's the finished product. Again, fuller flowers (and ones that weren't wilting for the picture) would make this look much better but it works for now :)

I made this no sew window treatment for Anna's room (actually made two, one for both windows). I don't have a sewing machine (nor do I sew) so a hot glue gun came in handy for these. I got the idea from my friend Amy and an ad for JoAnn's fabrics. I had to leave the blinds down to take the picture because there was too much light otherwise but they look better when the blinds are up. I used a white ilet fabric because it's light and airy looking when the blinds are up. The ties are just made with blue/white polka dot ribbon. Pretty simple which is my style!

That's it for the projects so far!