Shaelyn had a great birthday on Friday. She woke up happy, smiling, and with a fever. And a runny nose. (And every mother that brought a child to her party is saying "great!") But she didn't let that dampen her spirits. The first words out of her mouth when she popped her eyes open: "cake" and "friends." Yes, we'd been talking about birthdays and parties all week, and while we put her to bed the night before her birthday, we filled her head with hints of the next day - party, cake, friends, play, presents... So it appears she remembered. And with that level of anticipation and cuteness, I just couldn't bring myself to cancel her party. So I exposed all my friends' kids to her germs instead, all in the name of motherly love.
But before the party (she had a pizza party that night...), Michael and I had to give her our present. A month-long (give or take) labor of love. We emptied out the never-used office/guest room (and in the process completely took over our room) and turned it into a playroom. Now Shaelyn has a fun place to play while I sew, or in the future, nurse Rachelle. Plus, it will help contain the mess into an upstairs (and hidden) room, instead of having toys strewn all around downstairs.
We took a ton of pictures to document the "reveal" because Shaelyn was just so cute. Here's a breakdown of what you'll see:
* eating her "birthday waffle"
* seeing the playroom the night before, when we had it all set up and pretty for the next morning
* inspecting all the chairs before sitting in any of them
* finding toys in the new "toy organizer"
* bringing all toys to the table individually to play with them (here's a hint: if your child has stopped playing with their toys, just move the toys to a new room and suddenly - new interest in toys!)
* discovering the art cabinet full of crayons, paper, coloring books, and stickers
* coloring on her new Shaelyn-sized table
* enjoying her new, much bigger bookcase and having fun investigating each canvas drawer
* figuring out how to destroy the playroom - all the bins come off the toy organizer, and stack to make really cool towers!
Here's a (super long) video of Shaelyn's first visit into the playroom. When she went to bed, it was just an empty room with the walls painted blue. When she woke up, it was a toddler's dream come true!
Having a blast with the table and chairs - and remembering where all the chairs go!
Shaelyn calls the playroom "blue room" and loves playing in there. It was totally worth all the work. And I'm glad I got it all done in time for her birthday. So cross off almost everything on that massive to-do list I published earlier. The blue room is finished!!
