17 Month Addendum

So after writing the 17 month letter to Hadley, I realized that I didn’t talk about her schedule or her favorite things right now, and I want to be able to look back and remember those things!  Sorry in advance to those of you who thought we were past another boring baby toddler update.

On to Hadley’s schedule… with the exception of when she is sick or we’re traveling, she is in a pretty good routine sleeping and eating-wise!  She sleeps (on average) from about 7:30/8pm until 7:30/8am (hallelujah!) and still takes two naps a day.  She usually goes down around 10am for the first one, which lasts anywhere from 40 min to an hour and a half and goes down around 3 for her second one which lasts anywhere from 1-2 hours.  We are down to one nursing session (right before bed) and I am not looking forward to trying to eliminate that one!  I’m hoping she just decides to drop it on her own one of these days, because she can be stub.born. 

We have officially entered into picky-toddler land when it comes to eating.  Hadley is SO particular about what even touches her plate.  If you put something on there she doesn’t recognize or doesn’t like she instantly picks it up and hands it back to you with a disgusted look on her face. 

(And screams or throws it on the floor if you don’t take it back from her.)

Her “favorite” foods right now are: Plum brand fruit and veggie pouches (especially the fruit mish-mashes with oat/quinoa), blueberry waffles, grapes, apples, pretzels, puffs, wheat thins, cheese (which we have to limit because it can hurt her tummy due to the dairy) and spaghetti (she is particular about the sauce, too, and prefers it to be Prego).  She also really likes the grilled nuggets at chick-fil-a and will eat chicken fajitas, tortillas, rice, beans and avocados from a mexican restaurant (she’s not as big of a fan when it’s cooked at home!).  Other than those things listed, it’s a total guessing game as to whether she will eat it or not. 

If it’s green and/or healthy for you, it’s probably a safe bet she will throw it on the floor. 

Awesome.

When she’s not eating or sleeping, Hadley loves to play with her baby dolls.  She will feed them their bottle (or any other toy small enough to hold with one hand, or cheerios), rock them, push them around in her baby stroller and pat their backs.  It’s so adorable to watch her be a little mommy.  She also loves to play at her play kitchen, water table and climb in and out of her cozy coupe car.  She still loves Violet and treats her like one of her babies and gets up to dance when her favorite song comes on.  She likes balls of all sizes, her shape-sorter toys and all of her board books, but most of all, the girl LOVES to be outside.  Just the mention of going outside and she’s right at your feet saying “puh puh” (up, up) to go out with you!  If only we didn’t live in the land of the scorching sun so we could enjoy it more during the summer. 

Okay, I think that’s all (until I think of something else I forgot).  I’ll leave you with another picture of our little busy-bee!

Coleman Casa Home Tour

Awhile back, I was lucky enough to guest post for Karen At Home while she took a brief blog-break to have her son.  I thought I'd share the post that I did there since I haven't done an updated house tour for the blog.  If you read it back then, sorry for the repeat!
Welcome!
(To the longest post. Ever.)
I’m Brittany, and blog over at The Coleman Chronicles.  I’m a stay-at-home mom to a little 15 month old girl who is the definition of sugar & spice, and I’m excited to be sharing our home with y’all today!  I think it’s especially fun to get a glimpse of whose home you’re snooping around in, so here we are!

We’re from Texas, so c’mon in, have a glass of sweet tea and stay awhile!  This picture was actually taken right after we moved in almost 3 years ago.  Just imagine that the bushes are about 3x as full and the crepe myrtles are much taller!


Update: I decided to run out and take a current picture for y'all - (I realize this isn't really exciting to anyone but me and the hubs).  Look how much the bushes have grown in just 3 years!

We’ll start with the unstained rocking chairs on our front porch.  I love our front porch.  I wish more houses had them – I think more people would be friends with their neighbors and the world would be a better place. ;)

This is likely what you'll see when you enter the front door – complete with crawling walking(!) toddler.  She’s our little greeter. :)

This table is a work-in-progress.  I’d really like to paint it white – what do y’all think?  Of course, then I couldn’t have the white frame or platter there… decisions, decisions.  That frame was our “guest book” at our wedding and has one of our engagement pictures in it.  I still love to stop and read the notes people left! 

Directly across from this table is our study.  This is my husband’s version of a man-cave and the only room where he had free-reign to decorate as he pleased.  There are french doors leading into the room, so I can close it off when I’ve hit my manly-decorating-max.  {Most of these are old pictures, and aside from a new chair, nothing has changed in here – sorry for the lack of an update here.}  You’ll notice just about every inch of wall space is covered with some type of sports memorabilia.  Hence the reason this was the only room he’s had free-reign with. 
{Sidenote: when we first moved in, he asked if he could hang his Dumb & Dumber movie poster above the toilet in our master bathroom.  Oh how much we still had to learn about each other…}
Walking down the hall a little further you’ll find our dining room on your right and the kitchen to your left. 



If this was our “forever home” I would have painted our cabinets a creamy white a long time ago.  But it’s not.  So I haven’t.  Don’t you think the cabinet locks really add that special touch that the kitchen needed?

The breakfast nook and family room are both open to the kitchen area…

You-know-who had to make another cameo…



Before I move on, people always ask me what color is on the walls in the family room.  It’s a custom color that took about 8 trips to Lowe’s to get it right, but you can click here for the formula.
That little hallway to the left of the breakfast nook leads to our master bedroom and laundry room. 
First up, the master bedroom.  We actually just re-did this room and you can read more about the transformation here.  I worked with Courtney from A Thoughtful Place to change it up and it’s one of my favorite rooms in our house now!  


You can also find a tutorial on how I made our euro shams here!  They were seriously one of the easiest sewing projects I’ve ever done.
Our laundry room was the first room in our house that I painted.  I love the bright, cheery blue in here. 


When you walk through the laundry room (yes, we have one of those tiny laundry rooms that doubles as a hallway) you’ll come to the last 3 bedrooms and guest bathroom.  Up first is Hadley’s room.  The wall color in here is Portobello by Sherwin Williams.




Because our current house doesn’t have a play-room, Hadley’s room and our family room do double-duty holding her toys – hence the play kitchen and clutter on her bookshelf! 

Our guest bath is the next stop.  This was the second room I painted and I went a little bolder in here.  Some days I wish I had done a bright white or light grey to open the room up, but I don’t have to go in here every day, so I sort of like having it different than any other room. 


We have two more spare rooms, but one of those is currently a catch-all room for storage, so you’ll have to use your imaginations.  Our guest bedroom is the last stop (with a few quick hallway shots on our way…)

You can see how much this paint color changes with the light.  It’s Sherwin Williams Comfort Gray.  If I had my way, I would paint the wood posts and nightstand white to lighten up this room, but my husband seems to have an issue with painting furniture.  I’ll keep working on him…

The only place left to see would be the backyard!  We extended our patio with some stamped concrete, and thanks to buying new construction, had to add any and all landscaping you see back here.  There’s still a lot of growing to do, and the patio set needs to be stripped and re-stained, but we still love it back here!   Here is where we started…

And here it is now… {Please ignore the fact that the lawn needs to be edged & mowed in some of these.  We just had some serious storms here and overnight our grass has started to grow like crazy!}





That’s all!  Thanks so much to Karen for letting me hang out here for the day!  I’m excited to see the rest of the homes, and all of y’alls homes at the linky party!

Hadley :: 17 Months

Hadley-belle you are 17 months old!  And in the midst of fighting another round of strep – as evidenced by the fact that when I posted the previous post I was convinced it was the 3rd already.  It was, indeed, only the 2nd. 

Sick baby = momma can’t think straight. 

When you get strep, you show no other symptoms other than not allowing me to put you down to sleep.  Back in March, it was my only clue that something was off, and now here again, you were the same way.  We started your antibiotics today so hopefully tomorrow will be a new-you!

You are growing and changing so much every day that I wanted to write it all down so I don’t forget these days!

We’ll start with your stats:

• Weight: 26lbs 12oz (86%) – I LOVE your baby rolls!
• Not sure on your height or head circumference since we don’t have another official well-check until 18 months
• Diapers: Still in size 5s, although I’m thinking I might try a 6 or some overnights for nighttime.
• Shoes: Finally your little feet are growing!  You jumped up from wearing 2s to 4s in what seemed like overnight!  You can wear 4 1/2 now, and I’m ordering 5s for the fall!
• Clothes: You are mainly wearing 2t now, although you can still wear a few 18-24 month outfits.  It all depends on the brand.

Lately, it seems like you learn a new word every day!  You still do the signs for: more, all done, milk and eat, and while we were in Hilton Head you started doing the signs for please and thank you!  You use those (especially please) ALL.THE.TIME.  At the store, you’ll see something you want (how are we there already?!) and start rubbing your belly over and over to say please.  It’s cute punkin, but it’s not gonna work every time. :) 

You can say the following words: momma, dada, nana, poppa (Poppy might have to change his name since that is what you call him now), Katie {Tay-tee}, E (for uncle Eric), cheese (and you always say it with a smile – you will point to my camera and grin while saying cheeeeeese!), hi, bye bye, nigh-nigh, love you {ruh –roo}, Hadley {yah-yee}, waffle {wah-wuh}, apple {bap-ple}, cup {bup}, bow, ball, up (just the “p” sound over and over – {puh-puh-puh-puh}), banana {non-non}, yeah (sometimes you’ll say the word and other times you click your tongue – NO clue where that came from!), bath, duck and dog.  I’m sure there are more that I’m forgetting – you will pretty much attempt to say any word we ask you to these days, but sometimes it just comes out as a random syllable. 

You can point to all of your body parts and can tell us what the following animals say: dog, duck, bird, cat, tiger/lion, bear, monkey, cow. 

It amazes me on a daily basis what you understand in conversation.  I can ask you to go get something and you will.  I can ask you where something is and you start looking around for it and will bring it to me if you find it.  It’s scary, but I know you understand far more than I give you credit for!

Your personality continues to come through, especially as we enter the “Terrible Twos".  You, sweet girl, are a perfectionist and you get SO frustrated when something doesn’t go the way you planned.  We’ve been trying to work on dealing with your frustration and teaching you that it’s okay, but you’re not one to really roll with the punches yet.  You need time to cool off, and will stomp (literally) around while giving me dirty looks over your shoulder when you get in trouble; yet you will go right back to doing the thing that got you in trouble in the first place!  You test your limits with me over and over, and know exactly what you’re doing when you break a rule.  You look up at me with a semi-innocent look/wide-eyes and a slight smirk when you are doing something you shouldn’t.  You occasionally even shake your head no when you do it!  Such a stinker! I know God has big plans for someone with such a strong personality, though, and I pray He will guide us and you through it all!

All of that big personality, and yet when you fall down or bump into something you’d think the sky was falling.  I think a big part of the wailing comes from your being a perfectionist and getting so mad at yourself for allowing something to hurt you.  Or being embarrassed that you fell.  Maybe I’m giving you too much credit and you’re just really sensitive to pain (it wouldn’t be that surprising given your parents), but it’s a guess.  Either way, I’ll take any chance I get to scoop you up and give you some sugar!

Hadley – your daddy and I love you more than you could ever imagine.  And your heavenly father loves you even more than WE can imagine!  How’s that for loved?! I hope you never forget it little one! 

love, Momma