Hiiii!!!! I'm not one to have New Year's resolutions but today seemed like the perfect day to start Amelia's journal again. Amelia came into her room the other day and picked up the binder of journal entries from when she was in the NICU and said, "Mommy, read pweeze." She sat between my legs on the floor and listened while I told the "story of Amelia." She didn't understand what I was saying but she knew it was about her.

I remember one journal entry written while she was in the hospital where I asked if, once the journal entries became further apart, if she'd realize it was because I was spending time with her, savoring every single moment. When I wrote that, I remember thinking I'd keep writing each day just as I had done for the weeks or months prior. Eh, not so much. Somewhere along the lines, I began to use Facebook as my journal, but it's just not the same. I enjoy having my memory refreshed about things I swore I'd never forget and I hope she'll appreciate reading about her and all her antics. :)

That said, this entry isn't so much about her as it is her room. If you don't read it, you won't miss anything important. If you do read it, you might wish you hadn't. ha!

If you've followed along for the last, whoa, almost THREE YEARS, you probably know what a bone of contention it's been for me to have not been able to "do" Amelia's room before she was born. I came to terms with the fact that there really wasn't much of anything I could've done any differently considering I was 18 weeks when we found out we were having a girl and then my water broke at 23 weeks.

I did manage to pick out her bedding, which arrived a day or two before I went into the hospital. Yay me!

With all intentions of creating the most amazing nursery EVER while she was in the NICU, I picked out the most beautiful shade of blue for the walls, fittingly called "Blue Booties" that matched her bedding perfectly. As you all know, I spent those three and a half months AT the hospital, either looking at or snuggling with our little miracle girl. Of course, when she came home, I continued to start at and hold her every possible second.

Sometime around her first birthday, or maybe it was her second, I abruptly changed THE color to a beautiful shade of turquoise called "Aqua Chiffon." I painted one corner of her room and kept it that way for the next year/year and a half. Apparently, I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.

Beautiful color. Just not what I was looking for.

A couple months ago, I had the bright idea to completely finish Amelia's room as part of her Christmas gifts/surprises. By "finish" I meant painting the walls, converting her crib to a toddler bed, and making room for her new toys and belongings that she would get at Christmas. Just imagine, fresh paint, bright trim, her very own white Christmas tree with sparkly ornaments and a room full of exciting, new things! What's not to love?! A coat of paint, unscrewing a few screws, going through the toy box and trading out some furniture? Easy-Peasy!

*eyeroll*

Nothing I do is "easy-peasy." I could complicate the simplest of tasks, all in the spirit of perfection. David says I'm too, um, "anal." I prefer to think of myself as detail oriented although my dear mother *cough* says I've always been "picky." Yes, they love me.

The first decision to be made was the paint color. Imagine David's surprise (ha!) when I went back to my original "Blue Booties" color. Bless his heart, he took the two gallons of blue paint we'd had sitting in the garage for the last couple years back to Lowe's to have it shook up, came home and never even hinted at saying, "I told you so." I cleared the room of everything but her bed and painted the room while Amelia stayed at Nana's. We love, love, love the color! David because it's "Carolina Blue" and me because I can throw as much pink in there as I want to and it not look like a Pepto Bismol factory exploded. Score!

Below, you'll see the Aqua Chiffon on the left and Blue Booties on the right.

Up goes the Christmas tree! Oh, wait. My white tree doesn't have lights and I can't find any lights with white cords. That's ok, Walmart had a prelit white tree. I'll just go pick it up. THREE Walmart's later and not a single prelit white tree to be found. I checked online and started calling the stores that had inventory listed. I found one 3o minutes away and it became mine! So...

Up goes the Christmas tree!

Amelia's special "ornament" for this year:

Oh dear. Do you see it? The contractor standard "antique white" on the trim just won't do. I'll have to slap a coat of white paint over that, you know, since I'm painting anyway. Off to Lowe's I go, arriving ten minutes before closing. That's PLENTY of time to grab a gallon of white paint and browse the mini-chandeliers while it's being mixed, right? It's just white paint...Who in their right mind came up with fifty-eleven-hundred shades of white?! With four minutes to spare, I tossed one of the random white paint chips I had collected in the span of minutes to the nice and falsely patient paint dude behind the counter. He mixed, I paid and was running out the door just as they locked them. Woohoo! I have white paint!

Paint that sat in Amelia's room for another two weeks before I could paint the trim. In the meantime, I find some plans for another "easy-peasy" and cheap project for the most perfect book shelves ever! Yes, everything is "the most...ever" when I get excited, but y'all know that by now. Christmas comes, wood is bought, drill breaks halfway through making shelves, trim is painted in the meantime, progress is being made.

That's right, I said Christmas came and we're still working on her room. Have you ever tried to paint, build, fix....BREATHE with a two year old helping every step of the way? Here's a little video to better describe the works of my little helper: (click on the words for video)

We had decided to wait to do our Christmas with the three of us until sometime after Christmas anyway since the day before, day of, and day after were completely booked and I didn't want to feel rushed. I want to be able to make a big deal about leaving cookies for Santa and carrots for Rudolph, make a special breakfast the next morning, open presents, watch "It's a Wonderful Life", play with toys and just spend time together without having to run here and there. I don't think it matters what day it's done as long as we do it. We love spending time with our extended families but we want to make our own traditions and special moments, too. :)

That said, we didn't intend to wait quite THIS long, but as I've mentioned, nothing is ever easy-peasy when I'm the mastermind. Trust me, Amelia has no idea that we've not had our Christmas, and honestly, it's probably better that we have waited because she STILL hasn't had the opportunity to play with everything she received from grandparents, aunts and uncles! We could go ahead and let her open her gifts but I think it'll be easier to wait until her room is set back up, with a place to put everything once it's opened. That way she can just play and enjoy! There really is a method to my madness. lol

A couple days after Christmas, I painted all the trim except for the baseboards. Our 2 bedrooms are the only rooms remaining with carpet and we intend to replace the carpet with some hard-surface flooring as soon as possible. No sense in fighting the carpet to paint the baseboards when we're going to be ripping up the carpet soon anyway. I'll just paint it when the carpet comes up.

*light bulb moment*

A couple years ago, Mom and I were at a consignment store that had a million and two brand new rag rugs for cheap, so I bought a huge one for Amelia's room for a whopping $12.00. Since I changed the paint color in her room, shall we say...more than once, I never used the rug.

David seemed to remember the rag rug being big enough to cover Amelia's entire floor, so hey, why not rip up the carpet in her room, leave the padding and tack strips, and use the rug as carpet. Awesome!

After the carpet was thrown out the window, Amelia and I stopped for a rousing rendition of"Simon Says." (Click on the words to take you to the video)

I painted the baseboards while David and Amelia took a nap and then I got to play with power tools while everything dried. Remember those shelves? You can take a peek at their awesomeness here. I must warn you, though. That site is highly addictive and may create the desire to build even in those that have no idea what the difference is between a flathead and a phillips head screwdriver.

As luck would have it, the drill broke halfway through the last shelf, but thankfully, David had a corded drill hidden in the garage somewhere. I have six shelves in total but I may only use 5 of them. I don't think I want to go quite as high as up the wall as they did, but I'll just have to see what works best when they're installed.

We get up this morning, eat breakfast and David goes to Amelia's room to lay the rug down on the floor. Oops. He remember incorrectly. It wasn't big enough to cover the floor. I giggled - with my inside voice, of course - because I've been wanting to paint the subfloors of at least one room ever since I saw it featured on a blog last year.

He groaned with his outside voice while I showed the proper amount of regret. The tack strips and padding are up, the staples are removed and the subfloors have been swept, shop-vac'd, wiped down and shop vac'd again while David and Amelia took their afternoon nap.

Thankfully, the rug does cover a huge part of her floor and since this is a temporary solution to a permanent issue, I doubt I'll fill in the seams and properly sand the subfloors before priming and painting them. Don't worry, they'll be smooth and perfectly safe for cute little toesies, but just not perfect. In other words, I'm attempting to let go of my, um, attention to detail just a little bit since it really doesn't matter in this instance. IF, and this is a huge IF, he actually likes it, I'll go back and fill the seams, sand, and seal it. If not, at least I got to try it out!

Once I get the floor done, we'll do Christmas. I can accessorize and all that fun stuff afterward, but I want to get the big stuff done while everything is cleared out. Depending on how long it takes the primer and paint to dry on the shelves and floor, I hope to be done in the next couple days. David can't help with a lot of the physical stuff but he does a great job of keeping Amelia happy and entertained while I get to "play." It works!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to an incredible year ahead. I'm excited to see what God has in store for our family and pray that it's a great year. I asked David what he would wish for for the upcoming year and he simply stated, "for things to keep getting better." I second that motion.

See y'all tomorrow! ♥