New Wall Art

We are moving in less than a week!  We will be moving into another apartment in the same complex, but moving, nonetheless.  With moving comes a new chance to decorate.  Jordan wanted something new to put behind the couch.  He looked at a few different ideas on Pinterest, but decided to come up with his own idea.  Here are some pictures.

This is a digital photo of what we thought we might do.  Jordan spent several hours going through pictures and cropping them to the correct size.  It was very difficult to find only 6 pictures to use!

Next, we bought the wood.  We bought 10' x 10" planks and had them cut to the correct size at a Home Depot.  Each plank was $8.50 and we got three pieces from each plank. ($17.00 total)

After that we had the pictures printed at a Ritz Camera.  The photos were put together with two on each page and printed as a 20" by 30" at $29.99 a sheet and cut apart ($89.97 total). You can get them printed through Snapfish for $19.99. 

The next step was to paint the boards black.

 Photos were put on the boards using some super glue and a layer of mod podge.

A layer of Mod Podge was painted over each photo and the edges of the boards.

A simple hanger was nailed to the back of each board.

This is what they looked like all finished.

Size comparison.

Side/top view.

Top view.

Finished!  We don't plan on staggering it at our new place, but the nails were already in the wall here.

Our first blog!

This is the first post in our new blog.  Our son, Rhett, is now almost 9 months old.  I plan on posting things from the past year or so to catch everyone up.  I plan to use this to update everyone on the happenings in our family and show some of the projects we are/have been working on. 

Enjoy!

May 2, 2011- Rhett was born

So, I know I'll be adding more to this as time goes and I remember more, but I wanted to get started. 

Rhett was due April 29, and I knew that if he wasn't born by May 2, I would be induced.  Well, after a few false alarms, we went to bed on May 1st knowing our baby boy would be born the next day.  My pregnancy was pretty uneventful except for the Braxton Hicks contractions I started having around 19 weeks.  I knew he would be a big boy, but I didn't know just how big.


On the morning of May 2nd, 2011, we checked into INOVA Fairfax at 7:00 am.  We got to our room at about 7:30.  They broke my water 8 and started the pitocin at 8:30.

Contractions started right away and I was feeling pretty good.  After awhile, the contractions got to be so frequent and intense that I was having trouble breathing through them and I was starting to shake.  I decided to get the epidural (I wasn't against it from the beginning).  I was 4 cm dilated at that point.  About an hour and a half later, I was up to 6 cm.

By 4:00, I was up to 9 cm!  Everyone thought I would be having this baby by dinnertime...

At 6:00 they decided that I was fully dilated and ready to begin pushing.  I was already so tired and hadn't even begun to push!

So, I pushed, and I pushed, and I pushed...for 3 and a half hours...

The doctor told me that I had to get this baby out and I needed to do it in the next 2 contractions.   I had had nothing to eat except a couple popcicles and some ice chips in 13 1/2 hours and was completely exhausted.  I just wanted everything to be over, but I was very sure I didn't want a c-section.  The doctor said that the best thing would be to use the vacuum to assist.

With her help and a strong contraction, Rhett was born at 9:28 pm.  He was 9 lbs. 6 oz. and 21 inches long.  He surprised everyone with his size!

He was a beautiful, healthy, big boy! 

I was instantly in love!

And so was his daddy.

Our sweet Rhett.