Big Girl Room!

I am not going to call it a success yet because it's been only a few days. But so far Annalisa has fallen asleep in her big girl bed (with some help from Mitty) and staying in bed until about 4 or 5 in the morning when we hear her pitti patter on the wood floor walking into our room.

Practicing...

...in her new ballet outfit!

Princess Annalisa's Room!

Annalisa's big girl room is almost ready. I'm still moving around a few accessories and make everything work together but for the most part, it's done!

Here is the Princess herself posing on her new big bed!

The chair from her nursery with Hippo (a present from Nonna Lucia) and Anna (a doll mommy bought for Annalisa in Italy several years ago)!
The new night stand and the lamp from her nursery!
Tea pots and fan from Nanchang, China and my grand mother's espresso cups!
Mulan doll and the porcelain vase the director of the Yihuang, SWI gave us the day we become a family!
Isabella's art work!
The Good Luck Kitty we bought at the Epcot center this past June!

The frog on the closet door!
The detail on her bedding!
The bunny slippers from Nonna Lucia!
The Pinocchio door stopper stolen from my brother's Franco's old room :)
The dresser with the new knobs!

Her first Jewelry box!
The Princess in her Sleeping Beauty dress, crown and pearls from China!

A more Hip interpretation of Sleeping Beauty!

Singing Queen!

Notice the disappointed look on Annalisa's face at the end of the clip when she hears that Isabella didn't enjoy her improv show!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Big Girl Room Preview!

Annalisa has had an aversion for her crib since we first came home. We tried many different methods to try to get her to sleep in her room/crib but in the year and a half we have been a family nothing has worked for more than a few weeks.

For the past four or five months Annalisa has been sleeping with Mommy and Daddy.
Her room had become a shrine!

Really pretty but nobody ever used it.

We knew we needed to encourage her to sleep in her room but we also knew that we would never succeed with the crib. So we got rid of the crib and have been working on building the excitement for her new big girl room.

A few weeks ago I was at Pier One Kids and found this poster bed on sale.

Great buy! The web site lists it at $359 but I got a floor model headboard, foot board and rails for $250 (full size).

With my inspiration piece in the room I started working on the rest of the room.

I found these end tables at the Salvation Army for $10 each!

Painted them pink with green accents. Put tulle around the bottom and ribbon all the way around!

So far Annalisa is pleased about the progress!

(By the way those band aid she has on her legs are not covering booboos, she uses them as stickers) After I ordered the bedding I realized that there was no hot pink in the color scheme of the room so I changed the ribbon to a more muted green!The Door Decoration!

Next, I repainted the dresser!
Painted the drawers a light green, distressed them and stained them to match the headboard and foot board!This is what we did put inside one of the drawers.

Next I painted, distressed and stained the dresser pink.Dresser with the drawers And here is the bedding from Pottery Barn Kids!

Stay tuned for more progress soon!

Spot the Kitty!

As many of you know I am an animal lover. Well, that's probably an understatement beacause if I had the means I would probably own a farm with as many animals as I could possibly fit in it.

Right now we have three cats and one dog.

An orange tabby, Mittens; A gray long haired tabby, Cuddles; a Siamese, Stella and a White German Shepard, Bianca.

We rescued Mittens (a.k.a. Mitty) from the Jacksonville Humane Society 7 years ago. She is Polydactyl (she has 7 claws on each paw and an extra one on the back paws).

Because of the extra claws, her paw looks like a mitten (hence the name). This cat is a really funky, lovable cat. She has the patience of a Saint. With all those extra claws she could really do some damage but she has never scratched anybody (if you don't count the occasional lizard she'll hunt in the garage once in a while).

Kids can pull her tail, sit on her, lay on her, poke her... she just looks at them and takes it. She lies down with Annalisa at night and is never too far from her.

She is a super cat. We all love her very much.

One of her pastimes is to camouflage herself amongst Annalisa's Stuffed animals. Here is where I found her last night.

Found you!!!! GROUP HUG!!!!!