You are my sunshine

Poor Huds, he is one sick little dude.  At least his bottom side anyway.  He actually seems as happy as a clam cuddling with mama and playing with his tractors on the floor, that is, until the diarrhea explosions come, which is happening about every 45 ms.  Right now we are in between bouts and he is playing, so I thought I would do a quick post!

One of my favorite parts about being home in Arizona was working on the Meg’s shower present; a homemade/handmade YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE sign.  Meg pinned this pin on interest,  and as soon as my mom and I saw it, we knew that we could make it.  And make it WE did!  By far the best part about the project was that it was a group effort – the entire family worked on it at one point or another. Here’s how it went down - 

Tools –

   mdf ply wood for board (5/8 in.) 

   hammer

   leatherman knife but any kind of utility knife will work

   paint - we used, grey yellow and white

   lots of helping hands

Step One – Prep board - My dad bought the mdf ply woodand  had it ready to go before we got there. Thanks Dad!

Step Two – Destress - I was the lucky one who got the job of distressing the board.  It was an awesome stress relief and a great way to kick of the vaca...My dad must have known that those Junior Highers can be awfully antsy the week before Spring Break.
Instructions – Hit with hammer. Hit hard. From all angles. Have fun. Really rough it up. - Then use *knife to shave off edges and further rough up the center.

Step Three - paint - We started with a coat of gray paint – It doesn’t have to be perfect or evenly applied, it will only show in parts from under the yellow.  Once it dries top with yellow paint.  I did about three coats of the yellow.  I started with a very thin layer leaving pleanty of grey showing through, thicker in the middle and thinner on the out side.  I applied the next coat a little bit heavier.  And the final coat was very thin and just to fill in spots that need a little more yellow.  *I think the key here is to start light and add more as you go, dab some of the paint of on the lid or scratch piece of wood, and brush on in light strokes. Have fun.  The distressed look is very forgiving.

Step 31/2 - Keep little guys busy painting with water. Thanks for the help Stephan and Amanda.


Step four – Wording – We thought about printing the words in fun fonts and then tracing them on the board but in the end we decided to free-hand the writing.  My mom sketched  the words with a pencil and then Nat, Britt, and I filled it in with white paint using small watercolor paint brushes.  We made several adjustments to the letters as we were painting, the whole process was surprisingly forgiving. 

Britt and I painting away! 

I absolutely loved working with the fam. on this project.  It was really special to have  everyone contributing, adding little touches to create this beautiful piece of art.  A piece that is so much better than if one of us had made it alone.  I think we inadvertently started a new Acklin family “new baby” tradition – a family a project for the nursery!  Before Hudson was born I had wanted to paint a tree on the nursery wall,  my sisters were coming out for the weekend and I thought it would be the perfect project for us to work on.  My dad ended up drawing the tree and emailing it us to, we projected it onto the wall and traces his drawing, we all painted it, and then the whole family (Minnesota included) collected falling leaves and shipped them to us to paste on the tree!  I loved the project and thought it represented a beautiful life metaphor for parenting and raising a child, it took all of these loving hands to participate, contribute and add their own special touch to create this beautiful project, exactly how it is going to take those same hands (and more) to contribute to raising this munchkin and provide him with rich, diverse, and beautiful life experience.  It truly does take a village!  Thanks to everyone, we couldn't do it without our "village"!