The zoo, IKEA, and some recent crafting.

Ok, so I'm resigned to the fact that for the time being, I may not be able to post more than every couple of days. Some days there's just too much going on here.
We went to IKEA the other day, and as usual, spent more than we meant to, and came home with a bajillion things to assemble. As I write this, C is outside assembling the new patio furniture.
We got L a big boy bed. He said "oh I wub it," when he saw it. He liked the Hungry Caterpillar sheets I got him at Ross (for only 9 bucks!) We've had to read the Hungary Caterpillar every night since. Here's a pic of him playing under the canopy. He keeps wanting V to come play with him in his castle (canopy). He says she's the queen, and he's the princess. He's at least partly right. She's definitely the boss around here.



We also picked up some clearanced out bathroom cabinet components, which we are going to repurpose into a toy kitchen for the kids, hopefully in time for L's birthday in May. We spent $25 dollars for 2 cabinet bases, and 3 countertop pieces. I'm really excited, because I've been wanting to get them a nice kitchen, but didn't have the 3-4 hundred bucks to spend for the ones I was looking at. I'll post pics as we start working on it.

Yesterday we went to the zoo. L specifically wanted to see the snakes and bugs, so we made a point to hit those areas first. For some reason all of the reptiles were awake and moving yesterday, which made for a more interesting visit, and some neat pictures.





Last night, I finally finished the little quilt I started for L a while back. The only problem is that I started making it for his toddler bed. Argh. So now it's more like a throw. I had originally purchased a set of cute twin sized sheets at Ross to make him some curtains. I wanted something with trains and trucks, which he loves, but without a specific character. I was able to make him curtains for his two windows, use the scraps for his little quilt, and he got a cute pillowcase out of it. Not bad for about $12 worth of sheets, right? Except now I really wish the quilt was bigger. (By the way, I feel a little funny calling it a quilt. I guess it is, technically, but any real quilter could pick out a million flaws. Frankly it turned out a little sloppy, but I guess it's ok. L will never notice the difference.) Here's a pic of the teeny blanket on the new big boy bed....



and of the curtains:
(Yep, those are snowflakes still hanging in his room. I still haven't taken the last few down...)



I've also been working on the pinatas for V's party. They're coming along, although I realize why most normal people don't whip up paper mache crafts in the kitchen: the mess. There's glue everywhere.

This morning I started a project we've been talking about forever. We got a couple of cases of cheap IKEA picture frames from the as is department a while back for $2. I still don't know what was wrong with them. Anyway, I'm spray painting them black, and am going to get some black and white prints of our family pictures to put in them. Then I'm going to do the standard arrangement of lots-of-monochromatic-frames-in-a-big-collage-configuration on the wall behind the couch. Our walls are still mostly bare, even though we bought the house well over a year ago. This will be a start.