Easton's Room

Mid July Dustin and I closed the sale of our house in Brownwood, Texas to a sweet young couple with a little baby of their own AND a few days later closed on a home in Inola, Oklahoma (about 30 minutes northeast of Tulsa).   It may have been because of burnout from the Brownwood house, but one of the things Dustin and I were excited that this home would require minimal "projects".  I do plan on doing a post soon with more photos and information on our new house, but thought I would ease back into blogging and just do one room. The room we chose to be Easton's room, the former owners used as their "spa", complete with a sauna (which did not stay, thankfully).  It was painted an orange color, about the color of Kraft macaroni and cheese!

I chose green originally thinking of doing a jungle theme...but we found an AWESOME road rug and I still want to hang onto the penguins awhile longer...so I am not entirely sure what direction to go.  I kept a bit of orange, in part because I was lazy and didn't want to paint the recessed sides around the windows (it would have meant removing the blinds to do a good job).  Since I left orange around the windows I felt I had to keep some of the orange on the walls too after MUCH thought, decided on simple stripes.  However stripes are not very "jungle like", so now I am still considering my options on what direction to take Easton's room.  Dustin thought it looked like I should add some kind of text between the lines, I have been considering...  Maybe a bible verse or something.  This room most likely will change some more yet before I consider it DONE.

We also laid down some carpet and pad in his room so he could have an area we would not worry about him bumping his head on concrete (the whole house is stained concrete floors).  I didn't have it installed as I couldn't stand the thought of gluing tac stripes to the concrete floors.

Boys Will Be Boys

One of the best ways to keep Easton happy throughout the day is to give him something "new" to play with.  It could be a measuring cup, a spoon, or a toy.  Just something new/different for him to study, because most of his whining is due to boredom.  So when I decided to tag along on a 20 hour road trip from Oklahoma to Virginia with my mother-in-law, one of my sister-in-laws, and my 2 nieces to visit the other sister-in-law and her 2 boys, I made certain that I had several items handy to pass to Easton when he would start getting cranky.  On occasion we would pass him one of my nieces little dolls.  Dustin NEVER would have allowed this if he had been there!  But even without his daddy there to tell him "no" to dolls Easton would loose interest pretty quick in the dolls and it was onto another toy/item.  I realized on this trip that at home the only toy with wheels he can play with is a tractor.  So on the road I picked up a small dump truck for entertainment in the car.  A great purchase, that was entertainment for a good 30 minutes each time it was recirculated!  Funny how even at such an early age (8 months) he knows what the "boy" toys are.

Easton with his tractor (8 months)

Daisies and Purple Peppers

Since Easton was born my job title shifted to "stay at home mom".  So I get to hang out with Easton all day and watch him learn and grow - I wouldn't trade it for anything!  With this new role I have found myself with some extra time occasionally between playing with the baby, laundry, cooking, and cleaning.  Since the garden centers have been stocking up on plants I have had a major itch to plant.  However we are living in a house that is not ours, so I do not want to spend money on plants that will be sold with the house (we are keeping the house we are renting in "ready to show condition" in exchange for cheap rent).  Dustin spotted two large stock pots at an estate sale we went to one weekend and thought they could make great planters.  I wasn't crazy about the plain aluminum with some burn marks on the bottom, so I decided to paint them.  We have two of them and I decided to put the pepper plants in them, but to dress them up a little I planted some short flowering plants around them since a pepper plant isn't necessarily a really "pretty" plant.  Here was the result:

The owner of the house left behind a whole bunch of flower pots as well, that I decided to plant after discovering the clearance plant cart at a near-by Lowes.  It has been nice to add some color around the house - inside and out.  For mothers day my mother gave me a potted daisy - my favorite flower.  I noticed that one of the blooms is a siamese twin, from the stem up to the flower!

I am looking forward to the day when I will be able to plant a large garden and large flower bed on a property of our own.  But for now planting in pots or should I say stock pots, will have to do.